denver near the top as tech site pick for amazon headquarters

Crunching the answers of more than 2,000 respondents, a Seattle-based technology news website has determined that Denver could very much still be in the running as the home to Amazon’s second headquarters.

Questioning technology executives, developers, engineers, and marketing professionals, GeekWire.com listed the 20 cities that Amazon has announced for its finalists list, and asked which one of those cities the respondents would most want to move to.

Because of the career orientation of the respondents, the survey’s results could provide a hint of what Amazon itself was and is looking for when it asked cities to emphasize their technology assets, transportation systems, resident education levels and livability factors in the company’s original Request for Proposals.

The GeekWire survey placed Denver at number four, in a virtual tie with Austin. Coming in second was Atlanta, garnering 8 percent of the response vote, and Raleigh, placing first, with 11 percent.

Because there are still so many cities thought to be under consideration by Amazon, none of the other finalists, including such giants as New York, Los Angeles, and Dallas scored more than 3 percent.

GeekWire participants appear to have a thing for Denver: late last year it came in a solid second, just behind Pittsburgh, out of a lengthy list of cities the website’s writers and researchers voted to move to for a month to report on that city’s technology assets.

Denver made Amazon’s finalists list in January after more than 240 cities responded to the company’s RFP. Before that list was announced, the New York Times selected Denver as the city most likely to get the Amazon nod.

Based in Seattle, Amazon has said its second headquarters will cost at least $5 billion to build, with an initial construction of some 500,000 square feet, followed by 8 million more square feet to go up in phases. 

By Garry Boulard

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