Toronto still vying for Amazon second HQ spot
SAN FRANCISCO — The finish line is in sight. Amazon has completed the visits it’s been making to the 20 cities winnowed from the initial 238 that wanted to be home to the Seattle company’s second headquarters.
Cities are eager to get on to the winning and the enormous financial windfall the prize will bring. But expect more hurdles before the race is over, say observers.
One and perhaps even two more rounds of finalists are likely, said Greg LeRoy, executive director of Good Jobs First, a Washington D.C.-based nonprofit that promotes economic accountability in development deals. There’s simply too much leverage to be gained from wringing more incentives out of the next rung for Amazon to immediately announce a winner.
Amazon used “incentive” 21 times in its original request for proposals in September 2017, notes LeRoy, indicating it’s likely to push for even better tax breaks and economic incentives from the finalists. And when Amazon announced in January the 20 cities it had chosen for more intensive looks, it called them “candidates,” not “finalists.”
The stakes are enormous. Amazon says it will bring 50,000 hightech jobs and spend US$5 billion on construction to the second headquarters.
So far, the three Washington D.C.-area spots, along with Austin, Boston and Atlanta, rank high among analysts speculating on the winners. Toronto is the wild card. Oddsmakers have been having a field day with the HQ2 placement. British online betting site Pinnacle put Northern Virginia first, at 3 in 100, followed by Austin, Boston, D.C. and Atlanta.
Irish bookie site PaddyPower had Boston on top, at 3 to 1, followed by Austin, Atlanta, Montgomery Co., Maryland and Pittsburgh. Canada’s Bovada betting site puts Northern Virginia first, followed by Austin, Boston, D.C. and Atlanta, with Toronto gaining in popularity.
Being near the federal government might be strategic, especially with President Trump in attack-mode against Amazon. Trump has also been railing against the Washington Post, which Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos owns.
Toronto, the only non-U. S. city on the list, is an outlier with some significant pluses but also drawbacks, both related to President Trump’s policies and pronouncements.
On the one hand, the United States’ increasingly hard stance on immigration is making it tougher for companies to bring in top talent from around the world.
Locating in Toronto would side-step those problems. Canada’s immigration policies are very welcoming for highly educated individuals, which could help Amazon recruit global talent without running into U.S. professional visa restrictions. Oddsmaker Bovada recently moved Toronto’s odds from 20 to 1, to 5 to 1 because of the immigration issue, said Pat Morrow, the head oddsmaker for the company.
On the other, locating in Toronto could be seen as an attack on Trump, who has made increasing U.S. jobs — especially those that had been moved to other countries — a cornerstone of his platform.