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Baltimore's dream of Amazon HQ2 is officially over.
Amazon released its shortlist of 20 locations it is still considering for its second headquarters, and Baltimore was not on the East Coast-heavy roster.
Amazon instead selected three bids in the Washington, D.C., area — the district proper, Northern Virginia and Montgomery County, Maryland — as well as Philadelphia, Boston and Raleigh for the next round of discussions. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos owns the Washington Post and recently purchased a $23M home in D.C.
Montgomery County made it to the next round despite Gov. Larry Hogan publicly backing Baltimore's Port Covington as his preferred location for HQ2 in Maryland. He planned an incentive package that would have included investments into public transit to Kevin Plank's Under Armour mega-campus. Hogan will now propose a $5B incentive package to support Montgomery County's continued courtship.
Baltimore once again has been confronted with its struggles to recruit out-of-town businesses, an issue some attribute to its reputation for violent crime. As for Amazon, the Baltimore area still has an incoming distribution center at Tradepoint Atlantic to tie it to the e-commerce giant, and Holly Sullivan, Amazon's head of economic development, softened the blow for the city and the 217 other also-rans in a statement corresponding with the announcement.
“Getting from 238 to 20 was very tough — all the proposals showed tremendous enthusiasm and creativity,” Sullivan said. “Through this process we learned about many new communities across North America that we will consider as locations for future infrastructure investment and job creation.”
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