New York makes shortlist for Amazon HQ location

Amelia Camurati
New York was one of 20 locations on Amazon's shortlist for their second headquarters. (Photo courtesy of Amazon)
New York was one of 20 locations on Amazon's shortlist for their second headquarters. (Photo courtesy of Amazon)

New York made Amazon’s shortlist Thursday for the company’s second headquarters — a list mostly made up of East Coast locations.

The greater New York area was one of 20 options chosen from the 238 applications nationwide to the Seattle-based retailer.

The company plans to invest over $5 billion and grow this second headquarters to accommodate as many as 50,000 high-paying jobs. In addition to Amazon’s direct hiring and investment, construction and ongoing operation of Amazon HQ2 is expected to create tens of thousands of additional jobs and tens of billions of dollars in additional investment in the surrounding community.

Amazon plans to add a second headquarters similar to its Seattle campus. (Photo courtesy of Amazon)

“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,” said Holly Sullivan, an Amazon official. “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.”

The New York Times reported that New York’s proposal, which included four possible neighborhoods between the West Side of Manhattan, Lower Manhattan, Long Island City and the Brooklyn Tech Triangle, did not offer special subsidies or tax breaks beyond incentives available for any company that comes to the state.

The proposal included three possible sites on Long Island, including Belmont Park in Elmont, according to Newsday.

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, offered $7 billion in subsidies for Amazon to build in Newark, which also made the shortlist.

Other shortlist locations include Atlanta; Austin, Texas; Boston; Chicago; Columbus, Ohio; Dallas; Denver; Indianapolis; Los Angeles; Miami; Montgomery County, Maryland; Nashville, Tennessee; Northern Virginia; Philadelphia; Pittsburgh; Raleigh, North Carolina; and Washington, D.C., as well as Toronto, Ontario.

Amazon’s current Seattle headquarters contains 33 buildings measuring 8.1 million square feet. The office employs more than 40,000 workers and brought about $38 million to the city’s economy between 2010 and 2016.

In Amazon’s request for proposals, the company had a preference for metropolitan areas with more than one million people and a downtown campus with a similar layout to the original.

The request also lists site requirements, including being within 45 miles of an international airport, no more than two miles from major highways and access to public transportation at the headquarters site.

The initial square foot requirement for the headquarters is more than 500,000 feet for Phase 1 and up to eight million square feet beyond 2027.

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