With growing excitement over the past few weeks in response to Amazon’s Request for Proposal for locating its second corporate headquarters (HQ2) in North America—a project that will result in a $5 billion investment and 50,000 new jobs over 10-15 years—a group of Valley officials has decided to submit a proposal for a property in our region, after discussing the requirements of the RFP.
With growing excitement over the past few weeks in response to Amazon’s Request for Proposal for locating its second corporate headquarters (HQ2) in North America—a project that will result in a $5 billion investment and 50,000 new jobs over 10-15 years—a group of Valley officials has decided to submit a proposal for a property in our region, after discussing the requirements of the RFP.
The group includes Regional Chamber President & CEO Tom Humphries, COO James Dignan and Senior Vice President of Economic Development Sarah Boyarko; Youngstown Mayor John McNally; Warren Mayor Doug Franklin; Trumbull County Commissioners; and Mahoning County Commissioners.
The group reviewed the requirements for HQ2 to determine whether our market fits the criteria, which includes:
- Metro area with more than one million people.
- An initial 500,000 square feet of building space, and a total of up to 8 million square feet for future phase completion.
- A pad-ready site of 100-250 acres with utility infrastructure in place.
- Less than a 45-minute drive to an international airport
- Immediate access to major highways and mass transit.
- A stable and business friendly environment.
- A highly educated workforce.
- Quality of life and cultural community fit.
While the Youngstown-Warren region may not meet all of these requirements, the group ultimately decided to submit the top site in the two-county area to Team NEO/JobsOhio as a starting point. JobsOhio has an existing relationship with Amazon, working with the company on several projects throughout the state this year, and is also coordinating the submissions to the company from across Ohio. The Regional Chamber is the designated economic development partner of Team NEO and JobsOhio and takes the lead on the local coordination of such opportunities.
“Though this opportunity may seem out of reach for our market, this type of collaboration is exactly what it takes to effectively compete for these opportunities,” Dignan said. “We all recognize that success in regional economic development is accomplished through partnerships, and our role at the Regional Chamber is to coordinate with our counties, cities, townships and villages to drive job creation and new capital investment in the Valley through business attraction, retention, and expansion efforts. The long-term goal of all of our partners is to ultimately advance economic development and the related activities supporting the growth of jobs in the Valley.”
Dignan added, “We understand Amazon’s site selection process and are pleased to work with JobsOhio, which assists companies around the world in locating to and growing their business in Ohio, to determine our compatibility with the HQ2 investment, including any future opportunities that may arise."