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Word around the Internet campfire is that Amazon could have its list of 238 cities begging for an HQ2 windfall whittled down to a few frontrunners by this Friday.
Up the road, Charlotte put together a sort of chamber of commerce poetry slam to lure Jeff Bezos and crew. More importantly, officials told the Charlotte Observer they expect to hear by Dec. 1 if the Queen City is still in the running or disqualified.
Locally, the Atlanta Business Chronicle has been reporting that Amazon officials have made site visits in Atlanta and other cities, with expectations of possibly having a shortlist by Friday.
Whether that list will be made public hasn’t been specified, but it’s tough to imagine it not leaking.
Meanwhile, in the latest wave of rather arbitrary predictions, the Wall Street Journal slots Atlanta as tied with D.C. and Seattle in having the strongest criteria for a second Amazon headquarters—behind Boston and their frontrunner, Dallas. The Journal’s analysis notes that Seattle’s most similar sister city is indeed Atlanta, however, in terms of cost of living, college population, fiscal health, and other factors.
And CNBC says Atlanta and others have just slightly worse chances than Raleigh of bagging the $5 billion HQ2.
Amazon could require an eventual 8 million square feet—that’s about six Bank of America Plaza towers—for its (also eventual) 50,000 new high-earning employees. One unique aspect working in Atlanta’s favor is options, in terms of developable land, as Bezos and Co. could choose from airport-adjacency (Aerotropolis), an underdeveloped sports and government district (The Gulch), or a less-crowded inner suburb (Doraville’s Assembly mega-project).
That being said, the ABC has indicated The Gulch site is getting primary billing in Atlanta’s pitch.
The e-commerce goliath expects to pick its gold medalist in these corporate Olympics sometime next year. As Fortune relays, cities competing with Atlanta have plated up bonkers delectables to win Amazon’s favor, including free California land and a tax plan in Chicago described as “shocking.”
According to one highly scientific poll, 61 percent of Atlantans are at least cautiously confident the Big Peach has enough to offer to win Amazon-a-palooza.
And for what it’s worth, that Irish gambling website Paddy Power still gives Atlanta the best odds—3/1, followed by Austin, Boston, and Toronto at 7/1, respectively—to land the Amazon enchilada.
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