Amazon announced Thursday morning that it would start soliciting bids from North American cities to be the home of a second company headquarters on the continent, expected to eventually house as many as 50,000 employees.
Amazon wants a second North America headquarters. Now watch cities rush to the altar of Bezos.
The new HQ would be a “full equal” to the company’s Seattle headquarters.
Jason Del Rey has been a business journalist for 15 years and has covered Amazon, Walmart, and the e-commerce industry for the last decade. He was a senior correspondent at Vox.
Amazon said it prefers metro areas that house at least one million people and a strong technical talent pool. Of course, Amazon is also looking for a healthy dose of incentives, including tax exemptions or workforce grants.
“Incentives offered by the state/province and local communities to offset initial capital outlay and ongoing operational costs will be significant factors in the decision-making process,” the request for proposal reads.
Interested municipalities and local economic agencies have six weeks or so to submit their bid. That trampling sound you hear is them rushing to the altar of Bezos. According to Amazon math, the company contributed $1.40 to the Seattle economy between 2010 and 2016 for every dollar of direct investment it put into the region — or $38 billion.
Amazon said the new campus will eventually be a “full equal” to its current Seattle headquarters. While big U.S. metro areas like New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta and Austin immediately come to mind — what about a bustling tech center to the north? Toronto.
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
