Amazon Offers Insight on HQ2 Plans
In a speech given at the Sheraton Hotel in Seattle recently, John Schoettler, the real estate chief at Amazon, offered some logistical insight regarding the company's selection process for their second headquarter location, this just days after the tech giant narrowed their list of candidates to 20 cities primarily in the U.S.
As Puget Sound Business Journal reports, Schoettler said the company plans to create a campus of buildings and facilities within walking distance of one another, adding that the company looks "forward to cities that are also progressive and are thinking forward and long-term in terms of affordable housing and mass transportation and being able to move people around."
His outlook puts the HQ2 campus in a similar vein to that of the Seattle headquarters in South Lake Union, which continues to grow, as the company recently leased an additional two million square feet of office space, with another 2 million under construction and has over 3,000 current job postings in the city, Schoettler said. “We’re indelibly marked and linked to this city in a big way,” he said. “HQ2 doesn’t mean we’re leaving — we’re just looking to expand elsewhere.”
Though Amazon has not revealed when in 2018 they will officially announce HQ2's location, market pundits are already making predictions based on the shortlisted candidates, which range from New York, Boston, and Chicago, to Miami and Toronto.
As Bloomberg writes, "Amazon has said its preferences for the site include a metropolitan location with a population of more than 1 million, mass transit, proximity to an international flight hub and the potential to retain and attract technical talent."