Westchester Makes Special Delivery to Amazon

Westchester County officially threw its hat in the ring this week for the national sweepstakes to see which city will land Amazon’s highly coveted second corporate headquarters. Standing outside Westchester County Center on Tuesday, County Executive Robert Astorino outlined the county’s many strengths ­ talented workforce, accessibility, value and quality of life ­ in his pitch to the global retailing giant. And to show Amazon that Westchester is the smart choice that really delivers, Astorino had his pitch delivered to Amazon by drone!

Joining Astorino at the Tuesday news conference were leaders in business, real estate, labor, construction and education. Westchester County is in a unique and outstanding competitive position to attract Amazon to our County, said BCW President and CEO Marsha Gordon. Long the home of the world’s major corporations like IBM, PepsiCo, Regeneron and MasterCard, Westchester clearly has the assets of vibrant downtowns, excellent real estate, mass transit, transportation mobility, technological infrastructure and most important the talent and intellectual capital to attract and retain the employees needed. With our pro-business attitude and practices, Amazon will find Westchester the very best place to locate.

Amazon recently announced that it was seeking proposals from cities and metropolitan areas across North America to compete for its second corporate headquarters, a 500,000-square-foot facility known as HQ2 that is expected to include $5 billion in private investment and create as many as 50,000 new high-paying jobs.