Atlanta mayor touts ‘Gulch’ ahead of Amazon decision

ATLANTA — With Amazon.com expected to soon name its site for a second headquarters, Atlanta’s mayor said a colossal development planned for downtown represents a once-ina-lifetime shot to transform the city.

Amazon launched a highstakes municipal beauty pageant in January by narrowing its list of potential locations to 20 finalists, including Atlanta.

The company has said it expects to declare the winner of the headquarters and its roughly 50,000 jobs by year’s end.

Atlanta city council members were given a few more details yesterday about the potential impact of developing an underused site known as “The Gulch” that could meet Amazon’s search criteria.

“We are talking about thousands of jobs, potentially, that would come into this area and also the elephant in the room is that very big company that is looking at the city as a place to relocate their headquarters,” Mayor Keisha Lance-Bottoms said at yesterday’s city council meeting.

Planning documents made public earlier this year revealed that Atlanta’s project could include 18 buildings with 9.3 million square feet of office space — more than three times the space in the Empire State Building.

Amazon has said it needs up to 8 million square feet of office space for a second headquarters outside Seattle.

The other finalists in Amazon’s headquarters search are Boston; Austin, Texas; Chicago; Columbus, Ohio; Dallas; Denver; Indianapolis; Los Angeles; Miami; Montgomery County, Md.; Nashville, Tenn.; Newark, N.J.; New York City; northern Virginia; Philadelphia; Pittsburgh; Raleigh, N.C.; Toronto; and Washington, D.C.