That’s one way of making a hard Brexit.

A U.K.-based synthetic diamond manufacturer announced Thursday that it will open a facility in Gresham Vista Business Park.

The manufacturer, Element Six, is a division of De Beers Group. It will initially employ about 60 full-time engineers, technicians and other employees at the plant.

Once operational, the plant will be able to produce upwards of 500,000 rough carats of lab-made diamonds each year. Production is expected to begin in early 2020.

The project will receive a five-year property-tax abatement designated for new investment in enterprise zones.

De Beers ended up in Gresham after initially approaching Southwest Washington officials, said Janet LaBar, president and CEO of Greater Portland Inc. The Columbia River Economic Development Council referred the company to Greater Portland as part of a region-wide search, she said.

The business park is owned by the Port of Portland and also includes a major Subaru distribution facility.

Other U.S. markets were also jockeying for the De Beers investment. The company was attracted to Gresham by its affordable power supplies, friendly business climate and highly skilled workforce, LaBar said.

Element Six manufactures diamonds using extreme heat in a vacuum. The company recently announced a line of affordable synthetic diamond jewelry; it also makes synthetic diamonds for industrial use.

International trade is in a time of tumult, with the U.S. and trading partners instituting tariffs and the U.K. mired in a prolonged process to leave the European Union.

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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.

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Portland has some stiff competition to lure Amazon‘s second headquarters.

The Seattle-based company announced Monday it had received 238 proposals from across North America to host a second campus of the fast-growing Internet retailer. The proposals for Amazon’s HQ2 competition came from cities in 44 U.S. states, and provinces, districts and territories in the U.S., Canada and Mexico.

Amazon issued a request for proposals this fall for cities to host a second headquarters to rival its headquarters in Seattle, where Amazon has more than 40,000 employees and 8.1 million square feet of office space.

Greater Portland Inc. submitted a proposal to Amazon on behalf of Portland and its suburbs ahead of the Oct. 19 deadline. The proposal includes a “distributed campus” concept and space in the U.S. Postal Service site in Northwest Portland, said Janet Labar, Greater Portland’s president and CEO. Portland’s suburbs also offered certain properties, but Labar said she could not discuss those specific parcels.

“The rest of our communities who have submitted proposals through us are not at liberty to discuss specific sites,” she said.

Greater Portland’s proposal portrays the city’s proximity to Seattle as an asset.

“We are definitely owning that, because there is no way getting around that,” Labar said.

For instance, a flight between the two Northwest cities is only 20 to 30 minutes, she pointed out.

Among Portland’s challenges is a tight housing market that has resulted in rising prices for single-family homes. That’s not unique to Portland, Labar said.

“I will say, generally, most major markets have that challenge,” she said. “That’s why a regional solution is part of what’s needed here.”

Amazon is expected to winnow the contenders to a short list of serious candidates by December, before making a decision on its second headquarters in early 2018.

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