Amazon unveils 20-city short list for $5 billion second headquarters
Published on Jan 18, 2018 by
BY TERENCE CULLEN
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Updated: Thursday, January 18, 2018, 11:41 AM
Amazon on Thursday unveiled its 20 finalist cities to build its $5 billion second headquarters, including New York City, Toronto and Denver.
Roughly half of those municipalities are on the East Coast, which would give the Seattle-based e-commerce behemoth a foothold at both ends of the country.
Los Angeles is the only West Coast city to make the final cut, per a map released by Amazon on Thursday.
The Big Apple has some regional rivals in Newark and Philadelphia, whose bids for the headquarters also made the final list.
Boston, Pittsburgh, Chicago, Indianapolis, and Miami also made the cut.
Amazon also signaled an interest in Washington, D.C., and Northern Virginia, which could put the massive office in President Trump’s backyard.
The commander-in-chief has railed against the company for allegedly skipping out on taxes, while bashing Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who owns the Washington Post.
The announcement comes a day after Apple announced plans to build a new corporate campus and add 20,000 workers based in the U.S.
Amazon caused a municipal stir last year when it announced its plans to build a second headquarters. The company promised it’d create 50,000 high-paying jobs at new sprawling campus.
The company received 238 proposals by the October 2017 deadline.
New York City floated Manhattan’s Far West Side and Downtown along with waterfront Brooklyn and Queens as potential development areas.
The city’s placement on the list left some in the construction industry bullish on its prospects.
“We should take everything we need to…prepare New York and the region for a major expansion of jobs and a corporate campus like we’ve never seen before,” said Carlo Scissura, president and CEO of the New York Building Congress, an advocacy group for the city’s construction, design and engineering industries.
Even if Newark bested the Big Apple for the campus, he added, its proximity to New York would still mean a lot of economic activity for the city.
“If Newark got it, obviously New York would benefit tremendously,” he said. “My preference is New York, but I wouldn’t cry if it was Newark.”
Advocates in New York had pushed the city as a viable option because new construction.
But the bid wasn’t without criticism over potential tax breaks and the city’s stunted transit system.
And while some of the bigger cities are believed to have offered tax cuts, others went for gimmicks — like the Georgia town that offered to rename itself “Amazon” should the company move there.
That town didn’t make the list, but nearby Atlanta is still in consideration.
Two Texas cities — Dallas and Austin — also made the final 20, along with Nashville, Raleigh, N.C., and Columbus, Ohio.
A number of cities contacted by the Associated Press earlier this month declined to say what exactly they offered Amazon in their proposals.
Good government group panned the discretion of some cities when the potential deals could leave taxpayers on the hook.
“They’re just acting like this is another secret deal,” Greg LeRoy of Good Jobs First, a nonprofit tracking economic spending, told the AP last week. “This is a nutty situation.”
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/amazon-unveils-20-city-short-list-5-billion-headquart-article-1.3763862
