Toronto won’t get Amazon’s HQ2 but Mayor hails benefit

Any last hopes of Toronto being chosen for Amazon’s second North American headquarters ended this week as the firm confirmed its choices.

Not one but two new headquarters locations have been selected – making the decision not to choose Toronto more disappointing for those that saw likely economic benefits.

The New York City and Arlington, Virginia headquarters will see $5 billion in investment and around 50,000 jobs created. There is also a new Operations Center of Excellence for Nashville.

“We are excited to build new headquarters in New York City and Northern Virginia,” said Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon. “These two locations will allow us to attract world-class talent that will help us to continue inventing for customers for years to come. The team did a great job selecting these sites, and we look forward to becoming an even bigger part of these communities.”

Amazon says it will begin hiring for the new locations in 2019.

Toronto Mayor says city has benefitted
Looking at the positive side of the bidding process, Toronto Mayor John Tory said the city has benefitted from being part of the Amazon HQ2 bidding process.

He told CBC News that making the final 20 shortlisted cities raised the city’s profile as a tech hub due to the worldwide interest in the e-commerce giant’s selection process.

"We know the Toronto Region has already received an extraordinary dividend from this process — the downloading of our bid book some 17,000 times around the world by people considering Toronto as the place to locate or grow their businesses," Tory said.

He added that, according to the company that co-ordinated Toronto’s bid, there has been the equivalent of $143 million in advertising for the region from being part of the process.

Mayor Tory also expects increased investment in the city.

 

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