Business & Tech
Little Rock Ends Amazon Headquarters Bid: 'It's Not You, It's Us'
"Amazon, you've got so much going for you, and you'll find what you're looking for," an ad in The Washington Post said.
LITTLE ROCK, AR — Little Rock, Arkansas, ended its bid to house Amazon's second headquarters in a full-page newspaper ad Thursday in The Washington Post, which is owned by the online retail giant's CEO Jeff Bezos.
"It's not you, it's us," the city's Regional Chamber of Commerce said in the ad.
Amazon kicked off a nationwide race for its business last month issuing a call for bids. The site would require on-site mass transit and must be located within 45 minutes of an international airport, among other requirements. (For more information on Amazon's second headquarters and other Little Rock stories, subscribe to Patch to receive daily newsletters and breaking news alerts. If you have an iPhone, click here to get the free Patch iPhone app.)
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Little Rock breaks up with Amazon via the Washington Post pic.twitter.com/ND8Ef4cyuh
— Andrew Beaujon (@abeaujon) October 19, 2017
Little Rock Mayor Mark Stodola said the city would pursue the project, but the ad explained the city didn't meet those requirements. Residents can easily get to work "on foot, on a bike or just by a quick drive," though, the ad said.
"Amazon, you've got so much going for you, and you'll find what you're looking for," the chamber said in its ad. "But it's just not us."
Find out what's happening in Little Rockfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
Cities across the U.S. and Canada are clamoring at the prospect of landing Amazon's second headquarters — and with it, investments topping $5 billion. Amazon said the project could create as many as 50,000 new full-time jobs. Thursday was the deadline for proposals to be submitted. Aside from incentives, cities touted factors such as the number of sunny days they have, while trying other approaches such as Birmingham, Alabama's use of giant replicas of Amazon's Dash Buttons to send one of more than 600 pre-generated tweets to the company.
"We saw cities hocking their arms and all their economic development money in this," Stodola told reporters.
The Little Rock chamber did not say how much it paid for the ad or another gimmick — flying a banner over Amazon's Seattle headquarters. The city and the chamber launched a promotional campaign tied to the decision to not seek Amazon, dubbed "Love, Little Rock," that touts the city's amenities.
Little Rock isn't the only city to openly forgo a chance at Amazon's headquarters. San Antonio, Texas, told Bezos in an open letter earlier this month that "blindly giving away the farm isn't our style."