Amazon HQ2 candidates keep pitches secret

Boston is one of the 20
remaining contenders for Amazon’s HQ2.
Jacob Boomsma/Shutterstock

• Amazon narrowed
  its search for the site of its next headquarters,
  dubbed HQ2,
  to 20 cities in January.
• The majority of these finalists have kept their
  pitches secret. Even some city officials are complaining that
  they have been left in the dark, The New York Times
  reported. 
• 
  As a result, some cities – Newark,
  Chicago, Pittsburgh, and Philadelphia – are facing
  lawsuits or pressure from local public-advocacy groups to
  release information about their bids, on the grounds that any
  large tax breaks will impact the local
  population. 
  

It’s been nearly a year since Amazon
announced it was on the lookout for a second headquarters in the
United States, yet the cities on its shortlist are still none the
wiser. 

In January, Amazon whittled down 238 proposals to a list of 20
sites that are currently in the running for HQ2. A select few,

including Boston and
Maryland’s Montgomery County, have been public about their
proposals or the kind of tax incentives they will be offering.

But the majority haven’t, and many city officials are now
protesting about being left in the dark.

“I think the lack of transparency of this whole process is
galling,” Richard Florida, a professor at the School of Cities
and the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto
told
The New York Times. Toronto is on the short list for
Amazon HQ2. 

He added: “This has to be all out in the public. This is
taxpayer money.”

Jared Evans, a member of the City-County Council in
Indianapolis, another city shortlisted for HQ2, told The New York
Times, that he had been told “a
bsolutely
nothing.”

“The only time the public may become aware if the city has
promised Amazon incentives is if we win and then we need to get
those incentives passed,” he said. 

According to The Times, there are two main reasons for this:
First, HQ2 bids are being handled by local private
Chambers of Commerce or economic development groups that aren’t
required to make their pitches public. Second, keeping the
details secret is a way to keep their incentives hidden from
rivals and avoid the risk of having their ideas poached.

As a result, some of these cities — including Newark,
Chicago, Pittsburgh, and Philadelphia — are facing lawsuits
or pressure from local public-advocacy groups to release
information about their bids, on the grounds that any large tax
breaks will impact the public.

It’s not just the cities themselves that are remaining mum
on the process. Amazon itself has also remained highly secretive
since scoping out the 20 cities earlier this year. According
to the Puget Sound Business Journal, Amazon officials who visited
potential HQ2 sites didn’t share their last names or titles when
they arrived. 

“It’s been radio silence,” an anonymous economic official from
one of the shortlisted cities told the
Puget Sound Business Journal.

Another official whose city is no longer is the running told
the publication
that Jeff Bezos is “incentive-obsessed.”

“His whole team is charged with getting the largest pound of
flesh possible out of every jurisdiction they are in,” they said.

For the new headquarters, Amazon said it plans to invest
over $5 billion and accommodate as many as 50,000 high-paying
jobs, making it one of the largest corporate-civic giveaways in
modern American history.

As a result, some of the cities are pulling out all the
stops to make sure they are chosen. 
Maryland
put together an $8.5 billion tax incentive and infrastructure
bid, and local and state officials in New Jersey got legislative
approval to offer Amazon $7 billion in tax credits and incentives
to pick Newark, The Times reported.