US metropolises in frenzied ‘bidding war’ to attract Amazon
NEW YORK: It’s the prize of a lifetime — a US$5 billion (RM21.15 billion) investment, creating 50,000 well-paid jobs that everyone wants, but only one United States city will get.
From East to West, from North to South, metropolises across the US are locked in a frenzied bidding war, desperate to woo Amazon into favouring them as the site of the e-commerce giant’s second headquarters, nicknamed HQ2.
From US$7 billion in tax breaks in Newark, New Jersey to a giant cactus shipped inter-state, bids range from the colossally ambitious to the silly before today’s deadline for submissions.
The e-commerce giant announced last month that it planned to invest more than US$5 billion in opening Amazon HQ2, which would create up to 50,000 jobs and tens of thousands of spin-off jobs.
The Seattle-based company’s unusual announcement unleashed nationwide competitive juices as some of America’s most glittering cities — New York and Chicago — vie with lesser-known backwaters looking to exit oblivion.
“Let any state go and try to beat that package,” said a typically bombastic New Jersey governor Chris Christie on behalf of Newark’s bid.
New Jersey dangled the prospect of US$5 billion in tax incentives over 10 years, US$1 billion in property tax abatement and wage tax waivers that would allow Amazon employees to keep around US$1 billion of their hard earned money over 20 years.
As part of New York’s metropolitan area, Newark fulfils Amazon’s preference for places with more than one million people, a business-friendly environment and urban or suburban locations able to attract and retain strong technical talent.
But that wishlist hasn’t stopped lesser contenders resorting to gimmicks in a bid to win attention and perhaps circumvent the stipulations from Amazon.
Atlanta suburb Stonecrest, Georgia has offered to surrender 140ha to create a new city called — wait for it — Amazon.
“They have an eternal brand if they create and live in Amazon,” Mayor Jason Lary told Fox Business. “Their own zipcode.” AFP