Will Atlanta Be Home To Amazon's New Headquarters?

ATLANTA, GA — In the business world, it doesn't get much bigger than Amazon. So, when the Seattle-based tech giant announced recently that its looking for a home for a second headquarters, local officials all over the continent took notice.

And as the search has progressed, one city is being mentioned time and time again as a potential home for the project Amazon is calling "HQ2" — Atlanta.

Earlier this month, Amazon announced that it plans to spend $5 billion on the new headquarters, creating as many as 50,000 high-paying jobs in the process. In its call for proposals, the company said the project is expected to create tens of thousands of additional support jobs and tens of billions of dollars in additional investment in the community where the new headquarters land.

Watch: Amazon Is Expanding, And It Could Be Coming To A City Near You

The company estimates that its investments in Seattle, where its current 33-building campus is located, pumped $38 billion into the city's economy from 2010-16.

Amazon hasn't announced any sort of list of finalists for the new headquarters, which it says will be a "full equal" to its Seattle home. But lots of people who think hard about these things suspect Atlanta is in the running. (SIGN UP: Get Patch's Daily Newsletter and Real Time News Alerts. Or, if you have an iPhone, download the free Patch app.)

Atlanta was the first city mentioned on a list of potential homes for the new headquarters compiled by Business Insider.

The entry mentions Atlanta's already-diverse economic base, which includes the headquarters of such companies as Coca-Cola, Delta, Home Depot, and SunTrust Bank.

"Atlanta is well positioned to support the influx of employees Amazon’s second campus would bring to the region," the post reads. "Atlanta over the last 5 years has invested heavily in infrastructure (International Airport redevelopment and new light rail transportation lines to name a few) which has driven a vast majority of redevelopment in Downtown Atlanta and surrounding regions. In addition, the city’s government has approved over 22 miles of new running trails and numerous recreational parks, something which Amazon has driven heavily in Seattle."

CNN Tech also put Atlanta atop its list of prospective homes for HQ2.

Its post mentioned Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport — the world's busiest passenger airport — as a boost to the city's hopes, offering direct flights to Seattle, New York, Washington D.C. and San Francisco.

Being the home of the Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta also provides a natural pipeline of prospective employees for the technology giant, the CNN piece notes. Georgia's emergence as a hotbed for TV and film production also could be attractive to Amazon, which is expanding its Prime Video offerings, the site says.

For their part, state and city leaders say they're doing all they can to make Atlanta attractive to Amazon and CEO Jeff Bezos — who this year overtook Bill Gates to become Forbes magazine's richest person in the world with a net worth of more than $90 billion.

"I’ve made it very clear to our economic development team that this is a big one," Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "And if we can get this one, it would be a very big coup for us."

In a written statement, Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed said "Atlanta has the fundamental assets to be strong partners to great businesses, and help them grow and succeed."

So, what potential drawbacks could hurt Atlanta's chances to become Amazon's second home? Some analysts mention the city's famous traffic and the relatively limited coverage of the MARTA transit system's rail lines.

Some also have wondered whether socially conservative legislation out of the state's Republican-controlled legislature — like the so-called "bathroom bill" that sparked boycotts in North Carolina — could be a concern.

Amazon's deadline for proposals for HQ2 is Oct. 19. The company is expected to make its final decision some time next year.

Photos of Amazon's Seattle campus courtesy Amazon.