Princeton University President Appeals To Amazon For NJ Headquarters

PRINCETON, NJ — The president of Princeton University is imploring Amazon’s founder and Amazon’s CEO to bring its new headquarters to New Jersey, the university announced on Thursday. University President Christopher Eisgruber has sent a letter to Amazon founder and CEO Jeffrey Bezos and Amazon CEO, Worldwide Consumer Jeffrey A. Wilke, both university alums.

Earlier this month, the Seattle-based retail giant 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.

“The RFP makes it clear that Amazon will be looking to engage with excellent institutions of higher education, partly because of your interest in working with exceptional faculty and students, and partly because your employees can benefit from the intellectual and cultural resources they offer,” Eisgruber said in the letter. “Princeton University provides multiple opportunities for intellectual enrichment and engagement, exceptional cultural offerings in theater, music, the other creative and performing arts, and a first-rate Art Museum; as you may know, we just opened a new arts complex that will allow us to increase the range and depth of artistic life on campus.”

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He went on to say the university would like to work with Amazon on potential research collaborations and innovation initiatives, as well as possible internship or recruitment programs.

“The strategic framework that our trustees adopted two years ago calls for increasing engagement with the growing innovation ecosystem of New Jersey, and expanded investments in engineering, including such fields as computer science, statistics, and machine learning,” Eisgruber said. “These are fields that are revolutionizing the organization of human society and transforming scholarly disciplines throughout the world, and I know they are fields that are important to you and your business. They are attracting growing numbers of students and faculty who not only want to explore them, but to apply them in ways that make the world a better place.”

Amazon started as a website that sold books, but it has grown into an online market place to purchase from among the largest variety of products in the world.

“One of Princeton’s great strengths is that it attracts some of the best students from around the country and around the world in all the fields it offers, including the arts, humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, and engineering, but the greatest recent growth in student interest has been in what your RFP describes as the ‘most relevant’ majors for your business,” Eisgruber wrote. “The most heavily subscribed undergraduate major at Princeton last year was computer science, and in recent years, 70 percent of all Princeton undergraduates have taken at least one computer science course. Electrical engineering and our program in operations research and financial engineering are also among our ten largest majors.”

Earlier this week, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, U.S. Sen. Cory Booker and Newark Mayor Ras Baraka appeared appeared at a press conference to say that the state will be throwing its power behind a bid to bring Amazon’s second corporate office – known as HQ2 – to Newark.

According to Christie:
“Newark is prime for Amazon’s HQ2 development, and this deal would amount to one of the most successful endeavors in the history of New Jersey and Amazon. Newark is centrally located in the largest economic region, is a growing technology hub and offers the country’s fastest internet. It features an ecosystem that boasts unparalleled talent, connectivity, world-class higher education, vast transportation options and unique cultural amenities. For New Jerseyans, HQ2 means 50,000 new jobs and the creation of a larger consumer base and direct opportunities for local small businesses and vendors to grow and thrive. Adding tens of thousands of dedicated and community-oriented Amazon employees and their families will also further enrich our area neighborhoods and schools.”

On Thursday, Camden County officials submitted a bid to bring HQ2 to the City of Camden.

“Listen, we are 20 minutes 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,” Camden County Freeholder Director Louis Cappelli Jr. said in promoting Camden for the bid. “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.”

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Eisgruber concluded his letter by writing, “As you make what I know will be a critically important decision for Amazon, I wanted to assure you that my colleagues and I are prepared to help in any way we can as you consider the many benefits that a location in New Jersey would provide.”

To read the whole letter, visit princeton.edu.

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