The City of San Antonio and Bexar County have formally withdrawn a proposal asking Amazon to build its second headquarters in San Antonio. While city and county leaders believe there are plenty of local incentives, they say “blindly giving away the farm is not our style.”
In the letter to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Mayor Ron Nirenberg and County Judge Nelson Wolff say although San Antonio would be a great community for Amazon, they acknowledge by some measures the Alamo City has some work to do to meet the requests from Amazon. Amazon’s quest for its HQ2 include finding a city that has multiple transit and mobility options, airports with direct flights, and a wide selection of affordable housing.
Mayor Ron Nirenberg says he believes San Antonio is indeed a suitable city.
“We are investing in ourselves. We are growing a workforce pipeline amidst demographic change that the rest of the country will only begin to wake up to in the next 20-30 years. We’re a city that has smart utilities and a growing community,” he says.
What Nirenberg says the city and county won’t do is play into a bidding war.
“We’re not going to play the incentive game and mortgage our future to bring them here. If they choose to be in our city, it’s going to be because of all the attributes that make us the city of the future – America’s 21st century city – not because we put a couple of zeroes of tax payer dollars in front of them," Nirenberg adds.
Amazon’s proposal would bring at least 50,000 jobs to a selected city. Many of which could have salaries above $100,000. The mayor and judge say they’re still open to Amazon coming here but suggest Amazon may already have a city in mind.
