Long Beach And Huntington Beach Reveal What Could Have Been HQ2

Tax incentives, office towers overlooking the Pacific Ocean, Boeing’s old campuses and a beach lifestyle were not enough to lure Amazon to Huntington Beach and Long Beach.

With both cities out of the running, Long Beach and Huntington Beach released their joint proposal for what could have been Amazon’s second headquarters.

The two cities had remained secretive about the proposal leading up to the e-commerce giant’s naming of its shortlist last week. Of the California proposals, only neighboring Los Angeles County was chosen as one of 20 sites Amazon is considering for HQ2. 

Company officials had said they plan to invest $5B into the new headquarters and hire 50,000 people with high-paying jobs.

Both cities on their respective city websites released a fact sheet of their proposals dubbed “Amazon Coast — Portal to the World.” 

The proposal offered tax incentives and a “Sand, Sea and Air” headquarters theme.

Both cities offered to fast-track the permitting and inspection process and give priority to Amazon for filming in the area, according to the Long Beach Press-Telegram.

Tax incentives offered by both cities included allowing Amazon to keep a small portion of the cities’ share of sales tax dollars and bed taxes. 

For the Amazon Sand Campus, Huntington Beach city officials offered the 164-acre Boeing manufacturing facility at 5301 Bolsa Ave. The facility has 500K SF and has room to grow for a second tower and buildings to provide an additional 790,800 SF.

For the Amazon Sea Campus, Long Beach offered the 1 World Trade Center and 1 and 11 Golden Shore buildings, which overlook the Pacific Ocean. The buildings have more than 2M SF of office space on 8 acres. 

The Amazon Air Campus could have been Boeing’s C-17 site at 2400 and 2401 East Wardlow Road. The building has 4M SF on 72 acres.

Despite not being chosen, city officials saw a silver lining. They said the bid process allowed them to assess their city’s resources should another opportunity with a developer or company come up.