Amazon visits shortlisted cities for HQ2 again: reports

Amazon officials recently revisited Miami.AP/Lynne Sladky

• Amazon officials affiliated with the search for HQ2 have revisited Miami, Chicago, New York City, Newark, and cities in the Washington, DC, area recently, according to reports.
• Other cities haven’t seen Amazon since the initial visit, according to the Wall Street Journal.
• That could signal that even though Amazon said it would announce the final selection for its second headquarters before the end of the year, the decision is far from set in stone as of yet.

Amazon reportedly couldn’t get enough of some HQ2 candidate cities.

Representatives for the company affiliated with the search for the site for its second headquarters recently made return visits to multiple cities on Amazon‘s short list of candidates still in the running, according to multiple reports from the Wall Street Journal, the Chicago Tribune, and the South Florida Business Journal.

Amazon reportedly visited Miami, Chicago, New York City, Newark, and locations in the Washington, DC, area.

The visits were made in the last few months, but few other details about why or which sites the company visited are available in most cases.

A representative for Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider. The company declined to comment on the previously reported Miami and Chicago visits.

According to the Tribune report, the visit to Chicago was made so that representatives could see the site for a new, 62-acre development called The 78. Located in the South Loop, it’s one of the last sizable pieces of undeveloped land close to the city’s core.

That could make it attractive to Amazon, which stipulated in its request for proposals that it desires an urban campus for its second headquarters, much like its original campus in Seattle.

Amazon visited four other potential HQ2 sites in its earlier trip to Chicago this year, but not this one.

The repeat visits that have been reported so far are notable as they’re coming late in the HQ2 selection process. Amazon has said it will make its decision by the end of the year. Some cities, like Raleigh, North Carolina, have not received a second visit, according to the WSJ.

A second visit to so many sites at such a crucial time in the HQ2 process could throw open the doors of speculation on HQ2. Though most analysts and experts have been betting on Northern Virginia as the winner, the additional site visits could suggest that the decision is far from made.