City of Las Vegas to Compete for Amazon.com Second North American Headquarters Location
LAS VEGAS, NV – Amazon.com, the nation’s largest online retailer, is planning on opening a second North American headquarters to supplement its original home base in Seattle, Washington; among the locations being eyeballed by the company may be Las Vegas, Nevada, and the city, in turn, has expressed enthusiasm at the thought of Amazon setting up shop in their zip code, and to that end – is already actively courting the mega-corporation.
Amazon.com noted recently that is plans on sinking over $5 billion in the construction of its proposed second headquarters, a complex that will house of up 50,000 employees, and Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos was quoted that this new location will not be playing second fiddle to their Seattle complex; indeed, Bezos noted that it will be in every respect a total and complete equal to the company’s current HQ.
“We expect HQ2 to be a full equal to our Seattle headquarters,” Bezos said in an official statement. “Amazon HQ2 will bring billions of dollars in up-front and ongoing investments, and tens of thousands of high-paying jobs. We’re excited to find a second home.”
Amazon has released a laundry list of requirements for any city or municipality that may eventually find itself the home of its secondary headquarters, including being near a metropolitan area with more than a million people; being able to attract top technical talent; being within 45 minutes of an international airport; having direct access to mass transit; and the space to allow Amazon to potentially expand the complex to encompass as much as 8 million square feet in the next ten years.
Las Vegas officials, already riding high on a wave of a reinvigorated economy and real estate market after years of financial slump following the mid-2000’s housing bubble burst, are looking to continue their good fortune by attempting to lure Amazon to their doorstep. The Governor’s Office of Economic Development and the Las Vegas Global Economic Alliance have officially announced that they will be working in consort to put together a proposal for Amazon to review and consider, knowing full well that such a coup could being untold millions into their city and help to generate thousands of jobs.
Steve Hill, executive director of the Governor’s Office of Economic Development, noted that his agency has a very solid relationship with Amazon; in addition, Las Vegas Global Economic Alliance CEO Jonas Peterson was quoted as saying that “Our goal is to compete for projects on all levels. We believe our community has a great product to offer headquarters-related projects.”
Amazon already calls Las Vegas home to one of its largest regional fulfillment center for the countless orders placed via their website on a daily basis; the center, one of over 75 warehouses Amazon currently has across the country, comes in at 800,000 square feet, and is located near Lamb Boulevard and Tropical Parkway. The facility opened its doors in summer 2017, bringing an immediate boon to the local economy in the form of 1,000 new jobs, many of consisting of workers who stock items and pack orders that are destined for numerous locations throughout the Southwest.
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