Chuck Slothower//January 19, 2018//
Amazon has decided Portland is not a prime location for its second headquarters.
The Seattle-based company on Thursday released a list of 20 finalists to host HQ2, and Portland was not among them.
Portland officials in October submitted a pitch to Amazon that offered a “distributed campus” concept, including the U.S. Postal Service site that borders Old Town Chinatown. Portland’s case, coordinated by Greater Portland Inc., portrayed the city’s proximity to Seattle as an asset.
In the end, Amazon decided to look farther afield for its headquarters. No cities in neighboring states made the cut. The only finalists in the West are Los Angeles and Denver.
“In some sense, it’s not surprising,” said Janet LaBar, president and CEO of Greater Portland Inc. “I’d feel worse if Seattle was in that 20 (finalists). I don’t feel bad. There were some really good lessons at a regional level that we learned and can take with us.”
Portland, along with regional partners, was one of 238 cities to submit proposals. Amazon says it will invest more than $5 billion in HQ2, and the second headquarters will eventually be home to more than 50,000 employees.
Many of the markets Amazon is considering are in the East, including Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Miami and Washington, D.C.
“They’re obviously not looking for another West Coast presence,” LaBar said.
Portland is moving ahead with development of the 32-acre Broadway Corridor in Northwest Portland regardless of Amazon’s decision. Developers have until Feb. 9 to submit proposals to Prosper Portland, the city’s economic development agency.
The Broadway Corridor is seen as a major development opportunity in Portland’s urban core. A 2016 Framework Plan written by a city-sponsored committee envisions 3.8 million square feet of development along with parks, open space and transportation infrastructure in the Broadway Corridor. The plan calls for nearly 2.1 million square feet of residential development, including affordable housing.
The Amazon competition helped the city shape what it can offer to developers, Prosper Portland spokesman Shawn Uhlman said.
“We’re proud of the proposal we put together because it reflects what we want in a development partner, what we’re willing to provide and what we’re not willing to provide,” he said.
Portland’s proposal did not include some of the deep subsidies offered by other cities.
Amazon has continued to expand in Portland even without HQ2. The company in the past three years has leased 3 million square feet of industrial space for warehouses and fulfillment centers.
The company has also expanded its office footprint since acquiring Elemental Technologies, now AWS Elemental, in 2015. Amazon recently signed a lease for 85,000 square feet of office space in the under-construction Broadway Tower, an Amazon spokeswoman confirmed.