Chicago Officially Makes Short List for New Amazon HQ
In 2017 Amazon announced that they will be building a second headquarters somewhere in North America, and 238 cities and regions across the continent submitted proposals to have their area be chosen as Amazon's new home.
The new facility Amazon calls HQ2 will cost about 5 billion to build, and will bring about 50,000 high-paying jobs to the area that is chosen. Ready for the good news? Chicago has just officially made Amazon's "short list" of possible locations. Yahoo!
According to WGN;
Getting from 238 to 20 was very tough – all the proposals showed tremendous enthusiasm and creativity,” Holly Sullivan of 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.”
Amazon said it evaluated each of the bids based on the criteria it previously outlined, such as proximity to a major airport and ability to attract tech talent.
According to Amazon's website, the 20 cities on their short list include: Toronto, Columbus, Indianapolis, Chicago, Denver, Nashville, Los Angeles, Dallas, Austin, Boston, New York City, Newark, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Montgomery County, Washington D.C., Raleigh, Northern Virginia, Atlanta, Miami.
Chicago has some stiff competition, right? Right. Winning the bid is definitely a go big, or go home situation. Cities vying for the bid are doing big things to gain Amazon's attention according to WGN. We're talking everything from sending gifts to Amazon's CEO, to offering to rename annexes of their land the "City of Amazon". Makes me wonder what big thing Chicago is bringing to the table to make the short list?!?
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