Express delivery: Pritzker, Emanuel urge Amazon to reconsider Chicago for HQ2

The new governor said he “immediately” picked up the phone when news broke that Amazon might be reconsidering New York

Governor J.B. Pritzker and Jeff Bezos with a picture of Long Island City (Credit: Getty Images and iStock)
Governor J.B. Pritzker and Jeff Bezos with a picture of Long Island City (Credit: Getty Images and iStock)

Gov. J.B. Pritzker and Mayor Rahm Emanuel asked Amazon executives to take another look at Chicago after news broke Friday the tech giant might be reconsidering its plan to bring 25,000 jobs to Long Island City in New York.

Pritzker “immediately called Amazon” once he read a report from Washington Post saying the company might back out of New York, Crain’s reported. The governor made a “full-throated pitch” to the company leaders and “assure[d] them that they would have a strong partner in the governor’s office,” according to a “a high-ranking administration source.”

The Post cited two anonymous sources who said that since Amazon has yet to lease or buy any space in Queens, it might shift its plans to a city where it would find a warmer welcome.

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Related Midwest president Curt Bailey told The Real Deal in November that Amazon had considered his firm’s 62-acre “The 78” mega-development among its top five choices for a new corporate campus.

Emanuel, who has touted his practice of aggressively courting corporate relocations to Downtown, initially shrugged off Amazon’s decision not to relocate in Chicago in November. [Crain’s]Alex Nitkin