So Kansas City is not good enough to be Amazon’s second city.
And Columbus, Ohio, is?
Amazon announced Thursday morning that 20 metro areas remain in the running for its second headquarters, and that list did not include Kansas City.
City Manager Troy Schulte issue this statement:
“Kansas City’s Amazon bid was a great team effort, and showed how leaders across the metro can come together to work on important projects like this. It was a creative bid, and we will continue to be aggressive in pursuing these opportunities for KCMO. After all, nothing ventured, nothing gained. Also, the national publicity for Kansas City generated by this competition shared news about our city’s momentum and economic growth.”
The reaction elsewhere Thursday morning was swift. Disappointed, but not surprised really.
“Amazon is missing out, but a sign we have more work we can do to be more competitive in the future...,” tweeted Kansas City Councilman Quenton Lucas.
“Kinda sad my hometown of #KansasCity didn’t make the list for $AMZN’s HQ2....,” tweeted Victoria Craig of Fox News, “especially after @MayorSlyJames epic product-review campaign. Gotta give KC points for a creative pitch!”
“What???,” asked Sarah Fenske of The Riverfront Times. “Amazon didn’t want Eric Greitens’ magic shoot flushing people from St. Louis to Kansas City? Have they no vision?
“Shout out to @MayorSlyJames for all you did to get #Amazon to come to Kansas City,” Catherine posted. “Lesson learned... infrastructure/schools are critical to get the best companies to come & stay. The mayor had the vision, the people need to start understanding it takes us all to make it happen!”
“St. Joseph didn’t make the list,” noted that city’s News-Press. “Neither did Kansas City, which was very public in its push.”
“Would be interesting to learn why Indy and Nashville made cut, but not KC. Similar regions/metros I believe,” tweeted Eric Roche.
“No Des Moines, Kansas City, Omaha, Minneapolis or St. Louis,” wrote Courtney Crowder. “AKA no love for the Midwest.”
“We r disappointed, but no reason to hang our heads,” posted Tim Cowden of the Kansas City Area Development Council. “Our region is better for the effort. My initial reaction is @amazon focus on population density in eastern US & Texas. We left it all out there. No regrets. Thanks 2 all who came together behind 1 #KC region proposal. Onward.”
“I think @MayorSlyJames should ask about their return policy,” said Stephen Yeargin.
“Kansas City dodged a bullet. $ time & effort needs to be local not spent to swoon a behemoth corp,” tweeted Brandon Laskowski.
Amazon said it reviewed more than 238 proposals from across the nation, Canada and Mexico.
The company expects to create 50,000 high-paying jobs and invest more than $5 billion in the city where it opens.
Here’s the list of cities that are moving on to the next phase of the process:
▪ Atlanta
▪ Austin, Texas
▪ Boston
▪ Chicago
▪ Columbus, Ohio
▪ Dallas
▪ Denver
▪ Indianapolis
▪ Los Angeles
▪ Miami
▪ Montgomery County, Md.
▪ Nashville
▪ Newark, N.J.
▪ New York City
▪ Northern Virginia, Va.
▪ Philadelphia
▪ Pittsburgh
▪ Raleigh, N.C.
▪ Toronto
▪ Washington, D.C.
Amazon said it would be working with each of the candidate locations on the coming months to dive deeper into their proposals, request additional information and evaluate the feasibility of a future partnership that can accommodate the company’s hiring plans as well as benefit its employees and the local community.
Matt Campbell: 816-234-4902, @MattCampbellKC
This story was originally published January 18, 2018 10:35 AM.