NEW YORK CITY—Commercial real estate data analytics firm Reis Inc. released a study today that ranked New York City as the top choice for the highly sought after Amazon HQ2 requirement. New York City's public transportation and quality of life were key to its top ranking.
The top five selections by Reis for Amazon's second headquarters were tech-focused cities: 1. New York City, 2. San Francisco, 3. Washington, DC, 4. Seattle and 5. San Jose, CA.
The report “Scoring the Metros for Amazon's HQ2” was authored by Reis senior economist Barbara Byrne Denham and chief economist and senior vice president Victor Calanog and considered Amazon's criteria as stated in its Request for Proposals for the new headquarters that included a preference for metro areas with more than one million people, a stable and business-friendly environment in an urban or suburban location with the potential to attract and retain strong technical talent.
“Given its public transportation infrastructure and high quality of life amenities New York City ranks as number one in this ranking with a score of 4.8,” the report states. “San Francisco is second at 3.8 followed by Washington, DC with 3.4. All three cities have both a high cost of doing business as well as high cost of living, but they all have high cultural amenities and access to higher learning,” the report notes.
The other metros to make the top 10 in the Reis study were: suburban Virginia (6), New Orleans (7), Boston (8), Rochester, NY (9) and Chicago (10).
The Reis report notes that its analysis was based on Amazon's stated criteria, but adds that the final decision could come down to factors that were not considered in its report. Those criteria could include city and state incentives, the “creativeness” of the location could also be based on “whether or not the decision maker owns a newspaper in the city,” an obvious veiled reference to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos' ownership of the Washington Post.
The other metro area rankings included in the report were:
11. Omaha
12. Philadelphia
13. Cincinnati
14. Pittsburgh
15. Denver
16. Providence
17. Syracuse
18. Colorado Springs
19. New Haven
20. Westchester County
21. Suburban Maryland
22.Salt Lake City
23. Raleigh-Durham
24. Richmond
25. Chattanooga
Shortly before the issuance of Amazon HQ2, the e-commerce giant signed a 360,000-square-foot lease at Five Manhattan West and also announced plans to build a $100-million fulfillment center in Staten Island.
Want to continue reading?
Become a Free ALM Digital Reader.
Once you are an ALM Digital Member, you’ll receive:
- Breaking commercial real estate news and analysis, on-site and via our newsletters and custom alerts
- Educational webcasts, white papers, and ebooks from industry thought leaders
- Critical coverage of the property casualty insurance and financial advisory markets on our other ALM sites, PropertyCasualty360 and ThinkAdvisor
Already have an account? Sign In Now
*May exclude premium content© 2024 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.
John Jordan
John Jordan is a veteran journalist with 36 years of print and digital media experience.
