New York : It’s the prize of a lifetime — a $5 billion investment creating 50,000 well-paid jobs that everyone wants, but only one US city will get. From East to West, from North to South, metropolises across the United States are locked in a frenzied bidding war desperate to woo Amazon into favoring them as the site of the e-commerce giant’s second headquarters. From $7 billion in tax breaks in Newark, New Jersey — 50 years ago aflame by deadly race riots — to a giant cactus shipped inter-state, bids range from the colossally ambitious to the silly before tomorrow’s deadline for submissions.
The e-commerce giant announced last month that it planned to invest more than $5 billion in opening Amazon HQ2, a second company headquarters in North America that would create up to 50,000 jobs, and tens of thousands of spin-off jobs.
We expect HQ2 to be a full equal to our Seattle headquarters,” promised Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, America’s second richest billionaire worth $85.8 billion.
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,” announced a typically bombastic New Jersey Governor Chris Christie on behalf of Newark’s bid. Christie, a Republican ally of US President Donald Trump, reached across the increasingly bitter US partisan divide to join forces with Democratic Senator Cory Booker and champion Newark’s chances.
New Jersey dangled the prospect of $5 billion in tax incentives over 10 years, $1 billion in property tax abatement and wage tax waivers that would allow Amazon employees to keep around $1 billion of their hard earned money.
Wooing the giant
- The e-commerce giant announced last month that it planned to invest more than $5 billion in opening Amazon HQ2, a second company headquarters in North America that would create up to 50,000 jobs, and tens of thousands of spin-off jobs
- This has prompted fierce competition among metropolises across the United States to house the retail giant
