Amazon announces HQ2 shortlist. Surprise: Fresno won’t be getting 50,000 new jobs

On Thursday, Amazon announced the shortlist of possible sites for its second world headquarters – the so-called HQ2. The list has 20 cities, narrowed down from 238 proposals.

Fresno is absent from the list.

That shouldn’t be overly surprising.

Fresno’s mayor described the city’s proposal to Amazon as “counter-intuitive” when it was announced in October.

Indeed, most cities were offering massive tax incentives – in Chicago it amounted to $1.32 billion. Fresno’s proposal set aside the incentive and instead offered a 100-year agreement that would use part of the sales and property tax revenue created by HQ2 to create an “Amazon Community Fund.” That fund would be used for workforce housing, transportation infrastructure, science/technology education and parks and trails, and be overseen by a board partially seated with Amazon officers.

Depending on your read of things, this was either wildly innovative (a la Los Angeles Times) or the a complete surrender of city hall to corporate America. The Seattle Times wondered if the promises in Fresno’s proposal were even legal.

In the end, it didn’t matter. Amazon didn’t explain how it narrowed the list, but only one city – Los Angeles – is on the West Coast. Tacoma, Spokane and Portland are out of the running.

The final decision on HQ2 will come sometime this year and the company would start moving into the new campus by 2019, according to the Seattle Times.

“I’m disappointed, but it was not unexpected. We had a hail Mary there,” Fresno Mayor Lee Brand said Thursday. The good news, he said, is that the application brought some good PR for the city. While it didn’t bring in Amazon – and those 50,000 new jobs – Fresno is seeing new interest from other major companies.

“As we speak now, we’re negotiating with people,” he says. “’I’m hoping we’ll be successful, maybe bring another 2,000 or 3,000 jobs.”

This story was originally published January 18, 2018 at 12:15 PM with the headline "Amazon announces HQ2 shortlist. Surprise: Fresno won’t be getting 50,000 new jobs."