Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

Amazon to Invest $5 Billion in Second HQ Outside of Seattle

posted by Fnord666 on Friday September 08 2017, @11:09PM   Printer-friendly
from the pick-me dept.

An Anonymous Coward writes:

Amazon will invest $5 billion in a second headquarters in a North American city outside of Seattle.

Amazon.com Inc. already has a sprawling Seattle headquarters that attests to its size and ambition. Now the world's largest online retailer plans to open a second North American campus -- dubbed HQ2 -- that Amazon says could be just as big as the existing one.

The company is asking local and state governments to submit proposals for a development that will likely cost more than $5 billion over the next 15 to 17 years and give the winning city or town an enormous economic boost. Amazon is already one of the biggest employers in Seattle and expects the new headquarters to house as many as 50,000 workers, many of them new hires. Cities have until next month to apply through a special website, and the company said it will make a final decision next year.

The mayor of Memphis, Tennessee, quickly expressed interest. So did officials in Chicago; Philadelphia; Hartford, Connecticut; Tulsa, Oklahoma; St. Louis; and Rhode Island, demonstrating that Amazon will wield a lot of leverage in making its choice.

"We expect HQ2 to be a full equal to our Seattle headquarters," founder and Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos said in a statement. "Amazon HQ2 will bring billions of dollars in up-front and ongoing investments, and tens of thousands of high-paying jobs."

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-09-07/amazon-hunting-for-second-u-s-headquarters-to-host-50-000-staff

Will the new HQ be in the U.S.?

Additional coverage at Reuters, NPR, Business Wire and The Washington Post

Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Amazon to Invest $5 Billion in Second HQ Outside of Seattle | Log In/Create an Account | Top | 26 comments | Search Discussion
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 09 2017, @02:55AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 09 2017, @02:55AM (#565476)

    So is Buffalo, NY -- similar story to the one you found for San Diego. In this case the shortcomings center around the high cost of doing business in NY State...

    If by chance Buffalo was chosen, it's a full circle. An early, really big mail order operation was the Larkin Company, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larkin_Company [wikipedia.org]

    The Larkin Company, also known as the Larkin Soap Company, was a company founded in 1875 in Buffalo, New York as a small soap factory. It grew tremendously throughout the late 1800s and into the first quarter of the 1900s with an approach called "The Larkin Idea" that transformed the company into a mail-order conglomerate that employed 4,000 people and had annual sales of $28.6 million (equivalent to $341,917,000 in 2016) in 1920. The company's success allowed them to hire Frank Lloyd Wright to design the iconic Larkin Administration Building which stood as a symbol of Larkin prosperity until the company's demise in the 1940s.

    Sadly, wright's innovative Larkin Administration Building has been torn down, but many other buildings survive and are currently being renovated into high class commercial and residential space.

    Starting Score:    0  points
    Moderation   +1  
       Interesting=1, Total=1
    Extra 'Interesting' Modifier   0  
    Total Score:   1  

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 10 2017, @05:56AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 10 2017, @05:56AM (#565880)

    Hey, I got a +1 Interesting for Buffalo.

    Thinking about it a little further, Wheatfield (in between Buffalo and Niagara Falls) could be a very good location. This is the site of Niagara Falls airport which used to be Bell Field, Bell Aircraft Company, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_Aircraft [wikipedia.org] This airport is active with a small Air Guard operation, a few charter airlines and recent buildings for Calspan and other aerospace/high-tech companies. It has a pretty long runway and very little traffic. Plenty of room to build (or reuse giant old Bell buildings) and Amazon could pretty much have their own airport. Very close to Canada and Toronto, nearby freeway could be extended over to this airport. No doubt they would qualify for low cost electricity from Niagara Falls hydro.