Irvine’s attempt to be chosen as the home of Amazon’s second headquarters will face 237 other competitors from across North America, the giant online retailer has announced.
Via Twitter, the company said Monday, “We received 238 proposals from across North America for HQ2. The team is excited to review each of them!”
Amazon, headquartered in Seattle, announced in September plans to invest $5 billion to build and operate a second headquarters and asked cities to submit bids.
Irvine Mayor Don Wagner wrote a letter, dated Oct. 12, to Amazon officials touting the city’s virtues, in which he said “no other city in North America can offer you a fully financed and fully approved headquarters in the center of the country’s largest technology recruitment region.”
Irvine is a “thriving city of nearly 270,000 residents in the middle of Orange County, the sixth largest county in the U.S. with 3.2 million residents,” Wagner wrote, adding that Amazon would “have access to nearly 415,000 STEM workers, the largest pool in North America” and “to more than 130 higher education institutions (including seven world-class, top 50 ranked universities), which collectively produce more than 30,000 STEM graduates per year.”
About 72 percent of the city’s adults have a bachelor’s degree or higher, which is tops in large cities in the U.S., Wagner said, adding, that “32 percent of Irvine’s adult population holds a master’s degree or higher, ranked No. 2 in the nation.”
Wagner also noted the city meets another important benchmark for Amazon – – a university located in the city limits — UC Irvine — and touted the city’s access to commuter rail and major airports.
The Irvine Co. has “stepped forward to finance all 8 million square feet” for Amazon’s new digs, Wagner said, noting that the development giant has “the approved land, buildings, and financial credit to meet or beat your schedule with just one company.”
Long Beach is also submitting a joint bid with Huntington Beach in Orange County outside of another separate Long Beach bid with the Los Angeles Economic Development Corporation.
Amazon published a map that showed bids were received from cities in most U.S. states, Puerto Rico, six provinces in Canada and three provinces in Mexico.
Moody’s Analytics recently published a top 10 list of metropolitan areas that best fit Amazon’s published desires for an HQ2 site expected to provide 50,000 new high-paying jobs. Austin-Round Rock, Texas, was rated first and Atlanta was second.
Some analysts believe that the company will want to diversify geographically away from the West Coast. The company’s main headquarters is in Seattle.
Amazon is expected to announce a winner next year.
–City News Service