Amazon.com named 20 cities as finalists for its new headquarters. Salt Lake City is not among them.
Amazon picked the 20 finalists out of more than 238 applicants. The new headquarters will bring 50,000 high-paying jobs and billions of dollars in capital investment from the company.
The list of finalists leans toward cities in the Midwest and on the East Coast, and away from the tech-saturated hubs of the West Coast. Many of the finalists have been considered shoo-ins from the moment Amazon announced the search, largely because of the attributes Amazon said it was seeking for its new home — including a metropolitan area with a population more than one million and the ability to attract and keep strong technical talent.
Although it received bids from regions in Mexico, Amazon narrowed its finalists to just Canadian and American cities.
The loss of this project will surely be a blow to efforts to turn the Salt Lake City/Provo/Orem area into a high-tech hub. Amazon says they plan to invest $5 billion to grow the new headquarters location.
Utah officials pitched amazon on Utah’s quality of life, strong economy and growing workforce.
The only city in the intermountain west to make the cut was Denver. Amazon provided no information on how the finalists were selected.
