Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s founder and CEO has expressed interest in building a second Amazon headquarters somewhere in North America. Cities have begun the bidding process trying to get Amazon to build the new headquarters in their city.

Cities interested in bidding for the headquarters had to submit their bids to Amazon by October 19th. Amazon has certain requirements for cities, this includes a metropolitan area with a population of at least one million people, a large area to be able to hire people from, and an international airport close to the new headquarters.

Many cities in New England have submitted bids to Amazon. The following cities in Massachusetts have placed bids into Amazon: Boston, Somerville, Lynn, Worcester, Weymouth, Billerica, a joint bid between Lawrence, North Andover, and Haverhill, Leominster, Foxborough, Fall River, New Bedford, Taunton, and Springfield.

Other New England cities that placed bids are: Hartford, Connecticut; Stamford, Connecticut; New Haven, Connecticut; Bridgeport, Connecticut; Danbury, Connecticut; Waterbury, Connecticut; Manchester, New Hampshire; Pawtucket, Rhode Island; and Central Falls, Rhode Island.

Other cities tried to entice Amazon to come to their city by offering tax breaks and other opportunities to try to convince Amazon to establish the new headquarters there. This includes a city in Georgia offering to change the name of their town, and a city in Arizona sending a twenty foot tall cactus to Amazon which they rejected.

On Oct. 20th, the city of Boston released their plan for the second Amazon headquarters. The bid is backed by the local government and over thirty colleges and universities.

The planned site of the headquarters in Boston is at Suffolk Downs race track in East Boston. The racetrack was opened in 1935 and closed in 2014 with the plan to redevelop it. The race track was a backup location for the Olympic Stadium during the planning stages of Boston’s bid for the 2024 Olympics before the bid was ended.

Overall, Amazon announced that they received bids from 238 different communities trying to get Amazon to put their new headquarters in their communities.  

Amazon will not announce where the new headquarters will be until 2018 with the plan to start construction in 2019. Amazon is planning on putting at least  5 million dollars into the project with the plan of hiring 50,000 people to work at the new headquarters. At this time there is not clear frontrunner, but it is believed that Amazon  is looking to move east.