New Mexico to make bid for second Amazon HQ
Online retailing giant puts out nationwide call for proposals to house facility
New Mexico might not be on anyone’s list as the site for a new Amazon headquarters, but neither was Seattle when the company chose that city as its home base in 1994, a top state economic development executive said Thursday.
Amazon, the giant online retailer, asked cities to submit proposals for what it is calling its second headquarters or HQ2. The criteria leaves many cities in the dust, and one specification that metropolitan areas have at least 1 million people should eliminate any possibility Amazon would locate in New Mexico, where the entire state population is barely 2 million.
The Albuquerque-metro area is the largest in the state and includes the counties of Bernalillo, Sandoval, Torrance and Valencia. Those four counties have a combined population of 909,000, but throw in Santa Fe, and you get a population just above 1 million.
“We’re definitely going after this opportunity,” said Albuquerque Mayor Richard J. Berry, a Republican who is not seeking re-election this fall.
Berry said his city will look to put together a good proposal for the region and can offer Amazon everything from urban land to workforce training, economic incentives and an outdoor quality of life.
Tim Nitti, president and chief executive of the New Mexico Partnership, a public-private organization that leads business recruitment in the state, said Albuquerque should put in a proposal
for the Amazon site. He said Seattle would not have been a major player in 1994.
“I think Albuquerque consistently punches above its weight,” Nitti said.
He said no one would have thought that the state could be home to two major federal research laboratories in Sandia National Laboratories and Los Alamos National Laboratory, or have successfully recruited the Facebook data center, which is under construction in Los Lunas.
Nitti said Amazon’s request for proposals goes beyond just numbers. The company is looking for a city “that is willing to think big and creatively,” according to its website.
“New Mexico is a place that consistently knows how to be different and use those differences to advantage,” Nitti said.
Just about every major city said it was interested upon learning of the competition. The Seattle headquarters has some 40,000 employees with annual employee compensation totaling more than $25 billion. And all those workers need housing, transportation and quality education for their children.
Amazon said it is looking for a community that has a strong university system, public transit, bike lanes and a diversity of housing and recreational opportunities.
Berry said the requirement for public transportation is one reason he pushed so hard for the new rapid transit project in Albuquerque, even though the construction and business disruptions have been unpopular. “It was something our city needs if we’re going to be competitive moving forward,” he said.
Still, the website MarketWatch on Thursday analyzed the requirements sought by Amazon, and listed just a handful of metro areas that meet them. They are Provo, Utah; Denver; Austin, Texas; Atlanta; Tampa, Fla.; Raleigh, N.C.; Washington, D.C.; New York; Baltimore; Boston; and Bridgeport, Conn.
One journalist narrowed that down to just one city that really satisfies the lifestyle sought by Amazon employees. “Might as well add criteria that the city’s name starts with ‘D’ ends with ‘R’ and has ‘enve’ in between,” he wrote of Denver. Denver not only has a strong outdoor culture, but it is part of a rising technology business cluster and has a population with progressive political values. Google is close to opening its new office building in Boulder, which is part of the Denver metro area.
Jerry Pacheco who heads economic development efforts in the Santa Teresa border region of New Mexico, said Albuquerque should take a shot at the project because it never hurts for a city to get its name in front of a major company.
“I would sink a hook into the lake,” he said. “Albuquerque is small as a metro area, but you can sell Albuquerque on other elements, the national labs, a high-tech community.”
He said the biggest negative for Albuquerque is its high crime rate, which is a major quality-of-life issue for technology companies trying to attract talent from elsewhere. And one of the data points requested by Amazon is “relevant crime data.”
The violent crime rate in Albuquerque is double the national average, and New Mexico recently was labeled the second-most dangerous state in the country after Alaska in a listing by USA Today.
But New Mexico might have an intangible edge that others don’t.
Jeff Bezos, the Amazon founder and chief executive, was born in Albuquerque in 1964, though his mother moved to Texas when she remarried just four years later.
Still, Bezos has been a frequent visitor to Santa Fe and for years held an October gathering for artists, scientists, entertainers, writers and other cultural pioneers. It has been held at both Bishop’s Lodge Resort & Spa and La Posada, though he moved it to California this year.
Amazon is a publicly traded company and its board of directors has to make decisions with shareholders in mind. But connections such as Bezos being a native of Albuquerque have been known to make a difference.
“Familiarity is always a good thing,” Nitti said. “Being able to say to the board, ‘This is a place I know, this is a place I’m familiar with,’ is very credible. Anything can make a difference.”