Amazon hunting for 2nd home, cities start lining up to apply

Associated Press

NEW YORK

Amazon, bursting out of its Seattle headquarters, is hunting for a second home. Must haves: A prime location, close to transit, with plenty of space to grow.

The company said Thursday it will spend more than $5 billion to build another headquarters in North America to house as many as 50,000 employees. It plans to also stay in its sprawling Seattle headquarters, with the new space “a full equal” to that, said founder and CEO Jeff Bezos.

Amazon’s announcement highlights how fast the e-commerce giant is expanding, and its need to find fresh talent to fuel that growth.

With the lure of so many new jobs, city and state leaders were already lining up Thursday to say they planned to apply. Among them: Chicago, Philadelphia and Toronto. They have a little more than a month to do so through a special website, and Amazon said it will make a decision next year.

Its requirements could rule out some places: Amazon wants to be near a metropolitan area with more than a million people; be able to attract top technical talent; be within 45 minutes of an international airport; have direct access to mass transit; and be able to expand that headquarters to as much as 8 million square feet in the next decade.