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CHICAGO TRIBUNE "Chicago will bid for Amazon's second headquarters--and it's 50,000 jobs"

Chicago is chasing one of the country's largest corporate headquarters deals in years, joining what is sure to be a fierce competition to land Amazon's second headquarters.

The city plans to respond to Amazon's request for proposals for the new 50,000-employee campus, said a spokesman for Mayor Rahm Emanuel.

Emanuel "has spoken with (Amazon founder and CEO Jeff) Bezos several times about picking Chicago," said the spokesman, Grant Klinzman, in an email.

The Seattle-based e-commerce giant on Thursday said it plans to invest more than $5 billion to create a second headquarters in another North American city, with buildings potentially totaling more than 8 million square feet and creating 50,000 jobs over the next 10 to 15 years. The positions will pay an average of more than $100,000 annually, Amazon said.

Amazon said "HQ2" will serve as a second headquarters of equal importance to its current 33-building, 8.1 million-square-foot Seattle campus.

"This is the Cadillac of corporate headquarters," said John H. Boyd, principal of The Boyd Co., a Princeton, N.J.-based corporate site selection consultancy. "This is the white-collar project of the decade," Boyd added.

One advantage for Chicago is the availability of viable development sites. Within North America's most densely populated cities, there are relatively few big, well-located sites that could accommodate Amazon's vision.

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