Amazon has whittled its list of potential sites for its second headquarters from 238 bids across North America to just 20, the company announced on Thursday morning.
The current nominees include 19 metropolitan areas across the United States and just one in Canada:
- Indianapolis
- Chicago
- Denver
- Nashville
- Los Angeles
- Dallas
- Austin
- Boston
- New York City
- Pittsburgh
- Philadelphia
- Montgomery County, Md.
- Columbus, Ohio
- Newark, N.J.
- Washington, D.C.
- Raleigh, N.C.
- Northern Virginia
- Atlanta
- Toronto
Dubbed “HQ2,” the tech giant announced last September that it would be looking to construct a brand new, second headquarters somewhere in North America, equal in size to its current base in Seattle. The application process closed up by October, and just recently it was suspected the e-commerce giant may have dropped a clue with reported expansion plans in Boston.
Amazon (AMZN) has said it plans to invest over $5 billion in construction and produce many as 50,000 high-paying jobs at HQ2, with the further promise of “tens of thousands of additional jobs” as well as billions of dollars more in additional investment in the host city—prompting a flurry of (sometimes outlandish) bids from cities and states to woo CEO Jeff Bezos and company. (Although not everyone was eager to roll out the red carpet to Amazon, with one city even telling the company not to bother considering it.)
A final decision is expected by the end of the year. Between now and then, Amazon said it will work with each of the candidate locations in order to evaluate hiring plans, employee benefits, and the local communities.