Local officials in Baton Rouge are stepping into the ring with cities like Denver, Boston and Chicago in trying to attract Amazon’s second corporate headquarters, despite the Capital City meeting almost none of the company’s requirements.
The company wants a place with at least a million people, an international airport, good schools, qualified local workers (the project promises to bring some 50,000 jobs), bearable traffic congestion, bountiful recreational opportunities, and more. Those qualifications indicate Baton Rouge is almost certainly not in the running.
Nonetheless, Metro Council members, along with Mayor Sharon Weston Broome, have introduced a symbolic proposal on the today’s meeting agenda “expressing the support of the (Metro Council) for the location so [sic] Amazon’s second headquarters in East Baton Rouge Parish.”
The council will vote to introduce the item today and a public hearing is set for later this month. The Metro Council meets at 4 p.m on the third floor of City Hall, 222 St. Louis St. See the full agenda.
—Sam Karlin
