West Phoenix city enters race for second Amazon headquarters
Oct 23, 2017, 1:47 PM | Updated: Oct 24, 2017, 11:15 am
PHOENIX — Surprise, a suburb of Phoenix, entered the nationwide race for internet giant Amazon’s second headquarters, it was announced Monday.
The city posted its video entry for the headquarters earlier this month on YouTube, but it was not made public until this week.
In the video, the city highlighted two potential locations for the new facility: Across the street from the city’s civic center near Bullard Avenue and Bell Road and another in Prasada, a partially unused development space near Greenway Road and Peoria Avenue.
It also pointed out that several international companies have chosen to open up shop in Surprise.
The city said that, should it be chosen, it would like to see Amazon play a part in shaping the feel of the city’s downtown area, including restaurants and shops.
Nearly 240 cities submitted bids for the new headquarters. Phoenix, Chandler and Mesa were also on the list of Valley cities to submit an entry by last week’s deadline.
Surprise was the only known West Valley city to publicly express interest in the facility.
Tucson also entered the fray and even sent Amazon a huge cactus as part of its bid.
The internet giant has said it would invest more than $5 billion into the new facility and it would bring about 50,000 jobs to whichever city it selects.
The company was expected to make its decision sometime next year.