Connecticut is out of the running to host Amazon's monster second headquarters. The internet retail giant Thursday released its shortlist of 20 communities that it's still considering. Hartford and Stamford, Connecticut's official bidders, are out of luck.
So are bids from individual municipalities like Danbury and Enfield.
Amazon said the so called HQ2 could bring as many as 50,000 jobs to its host community, and will represent a $5 billion investment. It had received 238 bids from cities in all 50 states, and even beyond in Canada.
Commissioner of Economic Development Catherine Smith told WNPR the company seems to be looking for a huge metro area, like Atlanta, Chicago or Dallas.
“With that many people they need to hire in the next ten, fifteen years, they really wanted to be in a much larger community than we could offer,” she said. “All of the cities on that list are substantially bigger - three, four, five, or even 10 times, even more than that, bigger than Stamford or Hartford.”
Smith said she’ll be focusing future economic development efforts on Connecticut’s niche industries.
“We think particularly in the sweet spots that we have here in advanced manufacturing, in bioscience and insurance and financial services, that we really do fit the bill for a lot of companies,” said Smith.
Meanwhile Amazon said it will now focus on each of its 20 finalists to take a “deeper dive” on their qualifications, and make a final decision later this year.
