County To Bid For Amazon HQ In Camden City

The county is moving forward with a proposal to bring Amazon headquarters to Camden, county officials announced.

The Camden County Freeholder Board unanimously voted to work with the state Economic Development Agency to craft a proposal that makes a case for Camden County — specifically Camden City — as the best site for Amazon’s second North American headquarters Tuesday night.

The Freeholder Board and the Camden County Improvement Authority will work alonside partners in the city and at the state to compete for the most prized economic development project in the nation.

“Camden will be offering intangibles that other locations throughout the nation can’t come to the table with, whether that be affordability, accessibility, proximity or a qualified labor pool,” Camden County Freeholder Director Louis Cappelli said. “This is a once in a lifetime opportunity and we are going to put our best foot forward to ensure we are in the mix to grab one of the finest companies in the world to call Camden home.”

The county views the 8 million square feet of proposed office space as “transformative for any landscape.” The thousands of new employees working within those offices will bring benefits the local economy of whatever community Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos decides to plan his new headquarters, officials said.

“Listen, we are 20 mins away from one of the largest airports in the nation, 30th Street station and a five-minute PATCO train ride to Center City Philadelphia, which by the way is closer to Camden than most of Philadelphia county,” Cappelli said. “For Amazon employees, we are a 50-minute ride to the beach, have amenities any work force would kill for and a quality of life that is second to none. Furthermore, we are 90 minutes away from New York City and three hours away from Washington D.C.”

Camden City and the county have seen an unprecedented amount of private investment over the last three years including the $320 million Holtec International Technology campus and several other new corporations encompassing more than $2 billion in total officials said. Construction continues at Knight’s Crossing as car manufacturer, Subaru of America, gets closer to finishing their new national headquarters and on the waterfront where American Water builds its new campus. In addition, the $8 billion, international food and beverage company, Campbell Soup, has called the city home for more than 140 years.

The acquisition of an Amazon headquarters would be at least among the biggest of those deals to date, as Bezos’s company has grown from a website that focused on selling books into a global e-commerce leader for the largest variety of products in the world.

Earlier this month, the Seattle-based company announced that it will invest $5 billion to build a second headquarters that will be "a full equal" to its Seattle campus. The headquarters will be somewhere in North America and will create 50,000 high-paying jobs.

Since then, locations across the country have expressed an interest in landing the new Amazon headquarters, including three in New Jersey: Galloway, Newark and Jersey City. County officials expect their bid to hold up against any in the country.

“Make no mistake, this is not an exercise, this is a process that we and our partners are passionately committed too. We believe a consolidated effort will make Camden and South Jersey stand out in the proposal competition,” Cappellli explained. “And you better believe we will be enlisting the help of every stakeholder in the region to make this proposal a reality.”

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