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It’s not long now before Amazon chooses its second home.
Amazon is building its second headquarters in North America, and cities want in.
With Amazon HQ2, the company will invest over $5 billion in construction and create as many as 50,000 high-paying jobs in their selected spot.
And as an estimate of $38 billion USD are promised to fly inside the chosen city’s economy, the full equal to the current campus in Seattle is being battled between many North American cities.
So, what does it take to be the new home of Amazon?
A new home
In September 2017, Amazon announced the initiative alongside with a request for proposals from governments and economic development organizations.
Over 100 cities in Canada, the United States and Mexico responded to the several phase 1 core requirements the company outlined which ended on October 19th. According to Modern Cites, these were:
- Being a metropolitan area with a population of over 1 million.
- Be within 30 miles of a population center.
- Be within 45 minutes to an international airport.
- Have proximity to major highways and arterial roads 1–3 miles.
- Easy access to mass transit routes.
- Account for up to 8 million square feet of office space for future expansion.
- Count with optional preferences including airports with direct flights to Seattle, New York, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C., urban locations, and proximity to major universities.
Toronto, the only non-U.S. city in the shortlist
On January 18th, Amazon announced the 20 cities to move on to phase 2, these were: Toronto, Columbus, Indianapolis, Chicago, Denver, Nashville, Los Angeles, Dallas, Austin, Boston, New York City, Newark, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Montgomery County, Washington, D.C., Raleigh, Northern Virginia, Atlanta, and Miami.
The list concentrates heavily in the U.S. Midwest and the Northeast region, as no cities from the Pacific Northwest made the cut and Los Angeles is the only West Coast representative.
Toronto is the only Canada city on the list while three of the finalists are in the Washington, D.C., area. Two Texas cities, Austin and Dallas, made the list alongside with New York and Newark. Detroit, Cincinnati and Minneapolis/St. Paul did not make the list.
Amazon will continue to work with each of the candidate locations to dive deeper into their proposal and request additional information if necessary.
They expect to make a decision in 2018.
https://twitter.com/Lester_Leaps_In/status/933483122527649792
