About half of Arizonans want leaders to pursue Amazon headquarters
Sep 12, 2017, 9:58 AM | Updated: 11:45 am
(AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)
(AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)
PHOENIX — Internet giant Amazon has announced it wants to open a second headquarters and about half of Arizona residents want to see their state land the facility.
A poll from OH Predictive Insights said 49 percent of Arizonans support state leaders working to attract the company’s new headquarters.
Another 37 percent said they were undecided about the possibility and 14 percent said they would oppose the new facility.
“By more than a 3:1 ratio, Arizonans want their leaders to aggressively pursue landing Amazon’s [headquarters],” Mike Noble, the managing partner and chief pollster at OH Predictive Insights, said in a release.
Phoenix was one of five U.S. cities identified by Axios as a potential candidate for the headquarters. The news site said the Valley was a contender because it has access to the state’s universities and is home to several other major corporations.
The city has said it planned to pursue the new facility.
The company already has a presence in the Valley. It has distribution centers in Phoenix, Goodyear and Chandler along with an IT center and some offices in Tempe.
Amazon said last week that it planned to spend more than $5 billion to build another headquarters in North America to house as many as 50,000 employees.
It also planned stay in its sprawling Seattle headquarters, with the new space “a full equal” to that, founder and CEO Jeff Bezos said.
The company said the new headquarters could contribute as much as $38 billion in indirect investments into the local economy.
The poll of 1,149 people was conducted between Sept. 8 and Sept. 10. It had a margin of error of 2.89 percent.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
