Amazon has announced the communities that will proceed to the next step in the HQ2 process and the County of Simcoe is not on the list. The County threw its hat in the ring in October, hoping to win the financial boon of having the new HQ.
The bid was among 238 communities to compete and be narrowed to a list of 20.
Toronto is the only Canadian city still in the running.
"In the coming months, Amazon will work with each of the candidate locations to dive deeper into their proposals, request additional information as necessary, and evaluate the feasibility of a future partnership that can accommodate our hiring plans as well as benefit our employees and the local community. We expect to make a decision in 2018," Amazon said in a statement.
On Oct. 19, 2017 the County of Simcoe announced it wanted to try to secure Amazon’s new North American Headquarters.
Three potential sites in South Simcoe – Innisfil, Bradford West Gwillimbury and an undisclosed site – were part of the pitch.
The announcement was made at the Lake Simcoe Regional Airport with a staged delivery of a box from Amazon to County of Simcoe Warden Gerry Marshall.
Amazon HQ2 will be Amazon’s second headquarters in North America.
The company expects to invest over $5 billion in construction and grow the second headquarters to include as many as 50,000 high-paying jobs – it will be a full equal to its current campus in Seattle.
In addition to Amazon’s direct hiring and investment, construction and ongoing operation of Amazon HQ2 is expected to create tens of thousands of additional jobs and tens of billions of dollars in additional investment in the surrounding community.
