Hamilton’s mayor says he is “not surprised.”
Fred Eisenberger is reacting to news of Amazon’s short list of cities still in the running for its second North American headquarters, and Hamilton is not on the list.
The online retail giant has narrowed its list of candidates from 238 down to 20.
“Getting from 238 to 20 was very tough – all the proposals showed tremendous enthusiasm and creativity,” said Holly Sullivan, Amazon public policy. “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.”
“One of the interesting parts of the short list is that they also picked Pittsburgh which is considered to be sister city of ours with a lot of similarities,” said Eisenberger. “If it lands in Toronto, in any way shape or form, Hamilton, Niagara and Kitchener-Waterloo will all get benefits.”
Toronto is the only Canadian city on the list, which also includes New York City, Boston, Chicago, Miami, Dallas and Los Angeles.
The company says it will conduct a deeper analysis of each of the remaining proposals and expects to make a final decision this year.
Amazon’s HQ2 will cost at least $5 billion to build and operate, and is expected to create as many as 50,000 high-paying jobs.
The following 20 metropolitan areas are moving on to the next phase of the process (in alphabetical order):
– Atlanta, Ga.
– Austin, Texas
– Boston
– Chicago
– Columbus, Ohio
– Dallas
– Denver
– Indianapolis, Ind.
– Los Angeles
– Miami
– Montgomery County, Md.
– Nashville, Tenn.
– Newark, N.J.
– New York City
– Northern Virginia
– Philadelphia, Pa.
– Pittsburgh, Pa.
– Raleigh, N.C.
– Toronto
– Washington, D.C.
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