A surprise package arrived Thursday morning.
Amazon has announced its shortlist of 20 proposals for its $5 billion second headquarters, with New York, Miami and Los Angeles all making the cut.
There were 238 proposals from around the U.S., Canada, and Mexico for HQ2, although all 20 finalists are American, except for Toronto, Ontario.
In New York, Amazon is expanding even if it doesn’t win HQ2.
In November, the company signed a lease with WeWork for the entirety of its 122,000-square-foot space at 2 Herald Square. It represented a third of the 11-story building on West 34th Street, between 7th and 8th avenues.
The company also confirmed it would open an 855,000-square-foot distribution center on Staten Island, and hire 2,250 new workers.
For the HQ2 sites, the city the city Economic Development Corporation received more than two dozen proposals from around the five boroughs.
The 20 finalists include other urban hubs around country, though most of them are located on the East Coast. They include Boston, Atlanta, Austin, and Chicago. Some less well-known locales also made the list, including Montgomery County, Maryland—a suburb of Washington, D.C.
Amazon plans to grow HQ2 “to be a full equal” to its existing headquarters in Seattle, Washington, and expects to create 50,000 jobs there.
(Click to enlarge, Credit: Amazon)
The e-commerce giant is looking for an area with low cost of living, an educated workforce, high incentives, at least one million people, and access to an international airport. Amazon announced the bids October followings its submission deadline.
Civic leaders, elected officials, developers, and seemingly everyone in between threw out ideas for Amazon’s massive headquarters in the run up to the deadline. There were three proposals from the Miami area alone.
Now that the finalists have been announced, Amazon will work with the selected cities more closely, according to the New York Times. A winner is expected to be announced later in the year. — Dennis Lynch