Austin lost its bid for Amazon’s HQ2 project.
The Seattle-based company announced this week it has selected New York City and Arlington, Virginia, as the locations for its new headquarters. Amazon plans to invest $5 billion and create more than 50,000 jobs in the new locations.
“The fundamentals that made Austin a top 20 finalist and have helped our city be a leader in job generation – our incredible talent and lifestyle – haven’t changed,” according to a blog post by the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce.
“Amazon already calls our region home. It has created thousands of jobs here with Amazon Web Services, the fulfillment center in San Marcos and, just last year, it acquired Whole Foods – a true Austin original.”
Austin and Dallas were the only two cities in Texas to make the top 20 finalist list. Amazon announced a year ago that it would be searching for a new HQ2 and it received 238 proposals from across the U.S., Canada, and Mexico to bid for the project.
Amazon announced it will split the project between New York City and Arlington and have three headquarters in North America. The company also announced a new Center for Excellence for its operations business in Nashville with 5,000 new jobs.
“We are excited to build new headquarters in New York City and Northern Virginia,” Jeff Bezos, founder, and CEO of Amazon said in a news release. “These two locations will allow us to attract world-class talent that will help us to continue investing for customers for years to come. The team did a great job selecting these sites, and we look forward to becoming an even bigger part of these communities.”
