City in on Amazon bid
WOONSOCKET – A city that’s often described as land-poor might seem to be an unlikely home for the second North American headquarters of the online merchandizing behemoth, Amazon – the proposed HQ2, as it’s come to be known.
So it came as something of a surprise Thursday when the RI Commerce Corporation included this onetime man- ufacturing center straddling the Blackstone River as one of seven Ocean State suitors for the Amazon facility – sure to be an economic game-changer wherever it lands.
But Mayor Lisa Baldelli-Hunt makes no apologies for putting the city into the hotly competitive mix, which includes Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, and a slew of other communities in the Northeast.
“It’s a longshot,” she admits with a laugh. “It’s a very, very long shot. In fact, it may be the longest shot we’ve ever taken.”
Baldelli-Hunt says courting Amazon is like playing Megabucks: If you don’t play, you can’t win. And she’d rather see the city in the fray than sit on the sidelines.
“I don’t want to watch that playing out without being in the game,” said the mayor. “Somebody has to win the lottery.”
Amazon’s requirements for land, public infrastructure, skilled labor and other amenities make for a daunting bill to fit. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos says the new campus will be “the full equal” to its existing Seattle facility, a 33-building campus with about 8.1 million square feet of building space, including 24 restaurants. The company says it may spend up to $5 billion on development and eventually hire up to 50,000 workers.
So where, exactly, could such a facility possibly fit in the city?
At this point, specifics are hard to come by – and that goes for most of Rhode Island’s municipal suitors – not just Woonsocket. When the RI Commerce Corp announced that it had assembled seven applications for Amazon as of Thursday’s deadline, the economic development agency released a link to the state’s application, but all of the details are passwordprotected, and RICC wasn’t giving out the secret entry code to anyone except insiders.
“We are not getting into specific site locations at this time,” said Matthew Sheaff, spokesman for the commerce corporation. “We’re letting Amazon digest our proposal.”
Baldell-Hunt issued a press release with a few clues that puts the location in the River Street area, but beyond that she, too, was reluctant to give out more details.
“The Administration has put together a combined municipal/private-sector proposal which we believe is transformative, imaginative, creative, exciting and workable,” Baldelli-Hunt said in the prepared statement. “The idea proposes an array of site choices that will make up the campus Amazon is looking for, which can be acquired and cleared for new construction as well as utilizing existing historic and architecturally significant buildings along the majestic Blackstone River.”
The area provides “abun- dant green spaces, water features and a planned bike path to service a large professional workforce,” the press release says.
The mayor said the city stands ready to offer a combination of older mill buildings that could be modernized for Amazon’s needs, plus new construction, built to specification. She said the sites could embody “fresh urban designs” with cutting-edge “net-zero” energy technologies.
Other communities in the Ocean State that tendered offers to Amazon are Providence, East Providence, Warwick, North Kingstown, Richmond and Pawtucket-Central Falls.
About the only exception to the mum’s-the-word rule on the proposals came in the joint application from Central Falls and Pawtucket. The two cities issued an announcement weeks ago that included rich detail about what they could offer Amazon.
Pawtucket Mayor Donald Grebien and Central Falls Mayor James Diossa point to a large tract of land straddling their border, an area called the Train Station District. The proposal calls for 884,000 square feet of new office, retail, and mixed use residential space in the area of Lonsdale Avenue and Pine, Rand, and Conant streets, plus a 790-car parking facility.
But Amazon officials say it will take more than just architecture and public transportation to win them over. They say they’re looking for a location with “strong local and regional talent – particularly in software development and related fields – as well as a business-friendly environment to continue hiring and innovating on behalf of our customers.”
In a lengthy request for proposals, Amazon also makes it plain that it favors metropolitan areas with more than a million people, preferably within 45 minutes of an international airport, access to major highways and mass transit, including rail and subway.