Photo courtesy of Amazon.
The list of over 200 cities and regions that submitted bids in hopes of landing the second headquarters of Seattle-based global giant Amazon has been whittled down to 20 as the online retailer announced its finalists Thursday morning.
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Cities like Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas and Denver all made the cut. So did Indianapolis, Northern Virginia and Toronto. Among the 20 finalists, the only city located west of the Rocky Mountains was Los Angeles, which submitted an RFP last October that included a network of cities in Los Angeles County, including Long Beach.
“Thank you to all 238 communities that submitted proposals. Getting from 238 to 20 was very tough – all the proposals showed tremendous enthusiasm and creativity,” Holly Sullivan, Amazon Public Policy, said in a statement put out by the company Thursday. “Through this process we learned about many new communities across North America that we will consider as locations for future infrastructure investment and job creation.”
While Long Beach and Huntington Beach had submitted its own joint-RFP called Amazon Coast, which included sites in Downtown and East Long Beach as well as at the old Boeing facility in Huntington Beach, a custom made surfboard and a trailer starring Kevin Pollak were not enough to woo Amazon.
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The two Long Beach sites proposed in Amazon Coast, the Boeing C-17 facility and 1 World Trade Center, were the same sites that were submitted along with the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation’s bid last October.
Amazon projected that the winner of the HQ2 sweepstakes would see an influx of around 50,000 jobs, comparable to its Seattle campus. The company suggested that the same kind of investments would be made in the city that is ultimately chosen for its second home, which according to the companies figures, could mean $3.7 billion in capital investments and the indirect creation of another 53,000 jobs and $55 billion from the Amazon effect.
A winning city for Amazon’s new headquarters is expected to be announced this year.