Amazon gets 238 proposals for its second headquarters

Deadline was Thursday night; only a handful of states aren’t represented

For the 238 cities and regions that bid to land Amazon’s second headquarters, FedEx was far too impersonal. Many of them were hand-delivered to Amazon’s Day One headquarters building in Seattle, and the vast majority arrived on Thursday — the last one late in the evening.

The deadline for proposals for the new headquarters, expected to bring as many as 50,000 jobs and more than $5 billion in investments, came Thursday night. Amazon released a map of North America on Monday showing that there were only a few areas not interested in hosting the project.

The sheer number of the applications didn’t surprise New York City.

“With 50,000 jobs on the line, it’s difficult to not attempt to win them,” said Anthony Hogrebe, with the New York Economic Development Corp. “Throwing your hat in the ring seemed to make sense, whatever you think your chances are.”

Though he, of course, thought New York’s chances were very good.

For nearby New Rochelle, N.Y., making a bid also was a chance to get some added publicity for a big new project, a downtown development initiative, mayor Noam Bramson said. “An exercise that enables us to present our assets and quality in a clear and convincing light is useful and something we can replicate,” he said.

Among those not participating: Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, Wyoming and Arkansas.