Bay Area tries to win bid for Amazon HQ2

CONCORD, Calif. (KTVU) - The Bay Area is putting on a full court press to get Amazon to choose this area for its HQ2 or second headquarters.

This headquarters would represent a $5 billion investment and employing as many as 50,000 well paid white-collar workers. 

In a strategic move, the City of Concord has partnered up with Fremont, Oakland, Richmond and San Francisco to bid on the proposed second headquarters for the online giant.

Time is of the essence because Amazon has stated that it wants the proposal in its hands by October 19th.

The reason for the multi-city bid is that Amazon wants only one bid per metropolitan area and so, the cities are coordinating their efforts through the Bay Area Council, a consortium of the Bay Area's largest employers.

"The Bay Area has many terrific locations along a great mass transit system, namely BART, where there are sites for a possible Amazon Headquarters. We're not talking specifically about those sites right now. That will come out as we gather more information," said Rufus Jeffries of the Bay Area Council.

Over the weekend, Concord was talking to a local paper about what it thinks is the perfect site; the 5,000 acre Concord Naval Weapons site south of Highway 4.

Today, the city decided not to talk any more. Nonetheless, one of Concord's two BART stations is not only close to the Naval Weapons Station, it is quite literally just across the street,.

The many additional advantages include Concord's Buchanan Field for executive aircraft, Oakland International Airport is close by, and there's access to the Bay Area's high technology centers, in addition to a highly skilled work force.

The location would also not force employees to face the increasingly congested commute into the central Bay Area or Silicon Valley.  There's also room to build a whole lot of housing. In fact, many Amazon Headquarters employees might have counter commutes to work.

But other Bay Area sites in the partner cities could be considered as well. "The partner cities that we're working with so far, and that may expand, have sites," said Mr. Jefferies. But, make no mistake, the critical issue here are congestion and housing prices, balanced against the prospects of some of the nation's best educated and talented tech employees.