And then there were 20. That’s the number of cities that have made the shortlist to be the site of Amazon’s second world headquarters. Atlanta joins cities such as Austin, Dallas, Denver, Los Angeles, New York, Nashville, Toronto and Washington, D.C., the company said Thursday.
As we reported earlier, Amazon, the world’s No. 1 online retailer, is poised to move to the next phase of its hunt for the best HQ2 city: Tax incentives.
“Getting from 238 to 20 was very tough – all the proposals showed tremendous enthusiasm and creativity,” Holly Sullivan, an executive with Amazon Public Policy, said in a statement. “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.”
Texas is said to be offering some tax incentives on par with Georgia’s $1 billion on the table. The stakes are high: Amazon said it will invest up to $5 billion in the local economy and create 50,000 jobs for the city it chooses.
The Inc. quoted Jeremy Bodenhamer, who runs a $13 million shipping and logistics firm,: “We believe they will select Atlanta,”he was quoted as saying. He cited the area’s deep well of tech talent as well as the region’s reputation as harboring people with top logistical knowledge (UPS as well as Lockheed is based here) a top reason.