Look at what Amazon seeks for its new headquarters

In the midst of a state of emergency, which keeps 80 percent of the Puerto Rican population in the dark after the passage of Hurricane Maria a little over a month ago, the government presented its proposal to become the second headquarters of the Internet sales giant, Amazon, among another 237 offers from other cities.

According to Bloomberg, the Department of Economic Development and Commerce (DDEC, for its Spanish acronym) intends to offer the former naval base in Ceiba, Roosevelt Roads, to serve this purpose. The DDEC did not confirm this, nor did they offer information concerning the proposal they sent, which is submitted confidentially. But, will they meet the requirements outlined by Amazon with the redevelopment zone features of the former naval station?

As per the call for proposals, the company based in Seattle, Washington, has a preference for metropolitan areas with more than one million people, combining existing structures of up to eight million square feet alongside green spaces of at least 100 acres. Plus, the second headquarters must be located 30 miles from the city’s urban center and 45 minutes from an international airport, as well as have a few miles’ access to main roads and public transportation routes.

In this case, even if you add the populations of San Juan and Ceiba, it wouldn’t reach the half a million people considered by Amazon. Concerning the space, Roosevelt Roads has 8,720 acres, 3,409 of which have been destined to be redeveloped by Clark Realty Capital since 2014. Plus, it takes over an hour to get from Ceiba to the Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport in Carolina by car. Furthermore, the company, which was founded in the 1990s, requires that the country that will house its second headquarters offer direct flights to Seattle, New York, San Francisco, and Washington DC.

The publication Politico stated that, despite the fact that company officials have highlighted the virtues of the geographic diversity for these new headquarters, an executive explained that locating themselves in the Northwestern Pacific area would recruit a different group of employees. Amazon’s chief executive officer, Jeff Bezos, made it clear that he wanted a city that is similar to Seattle and that already has a certain ‘magnetism’ for the type of employee that the company seeks.

On the other hand, Amazon hopes its second headquarters will be just as self-sustainable as Seattle’s, and with a similar electric power efficiency. Currently, Puerto Rico is still facing an uphill battle in attempting to revive the collapsed system of the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA) after Maria’s passage, and although it has received proposals for renewable energy projects–even from Tesla’s executive officer, Elon Musk–everything seems to suggest that the government will attempt to raise the former fossil-fuel-dependent system in a little over two months.

Similarly, the technological giant requires optic fiber connectivity and asks for a map that shows the area’s optimal cellphone coverage, while the country’s telecommunications are still trying to regain normalcy.

Amazon estimates that its investments in Seattle between 2010 and 2016 resulted in an additional influx of $38 billion to the city’s economy. Its second headquarters would generate 50,000 full-time jobs with an annual salary of $100,000.

Its Seattle offices occupy 33 buildings with 24 restaurants and, in 2016, it is estimated that it generated 233,000 hotel nights per visitor and employee.