And then there were twenty.
Amazon announced on Thursday it has chosen 20 metropolitan areas to move to the next phase of the process for HQ2, the company's second headquarters in North America that the tech giant said it will be linked to a $5 billion investment in construction and as many as 50,000 jobs.
Amazon narrowed down the 238 proposals it received to 19 cities in the U.S and one in Canada. Boston is one of the cities that passed this first selection; an Amazon spokesperson told WBUR that the selected location is "Boston metro area," which means that both bids from Boston and Somerville are going forward.
The Boston bid for Amazon's HQ2, which is available here, emphasized the cluster of academic institutions in the Hub but didn't include how much money the city might be willing to put on the table in terms of incentives. If Amazon does select Boston, the 161-acre Suffolk Downs site would likely be its new address.
In the coming months, Amazon will work with each of the candidate locations to dive deeper into their proposals, request additional information, and evaluate the feasibility of a future partnership, according to a press release. Amazon expects to make a decision in 2018.
The list of 20 finalists - announced in alphabetical order - is as follows:
- Atlanta, GA
- Austin, TX
- Boston, MA
- Chicago, IL
- Columbus, OH
- Dallas, TX
- Denver, CO
- Indianapolis, IN
- Los Angeles, CA
- Miami, FL
- Montgomery County, MD
- Nashville, TN
- Newark, NJ
- New York City, NY
- Northern Virginia, VA
- Philadelphia, PA
- Pittsburgh, PA
- Raleigh, NC
- Toronto, ON
- Washington D.C.
"Thank you to all 238 communities that submitted proposals. Getting from 238 to 20 was very tough - all the proposals showed tremendous enthusiasm and creativity," Holly Sullivan, 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."
