See where 2 new research reports put Amazon’s new headquarters

By Mike Sunnucks  –  Senior Reporter, Phoenix Business Journal Updated Oct 30, 2017, 6:13pm MST Two new research reports analyzing where Amazon.com Inc. (Nasdaq: AMZN) will locate its second headquarters look favorably on Washington D.C.  A research note from Baird Equity Research looked at the U.S. and Canadian cities where Amazon had the most corporate openings, according to CNBC. That research rationale centers Amazon landing its much coveted $5 billion HQ2 in a market where it already has a big footprint. Amazon has the most corporate job openings in Seattle (4,729) followed by San Francisco and Silicon Valley (889), Washington D.C and Northern Virginia (531), Boston (326) and New York (315), according the Baird analysis. Phoenix ranks 20th on the list with 16 job corporate openings. Amazon has a high-tech center and other corporate operations in Tempe. It has a total of 5,000 employees in the Phoenix market and is adding another 1,000. Most of those are fulfillment centers. Baird assumes Amazon isn’t looking to land its HQ2 in northern California because of its high-costs and being in the same time zone as Seattle. That puts Washington D.C. where billionaire Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns the Washington Post at the top of the list for the $5 billion second headquarters. The Washington D.C. area also comes in first for Amazon’s site selection, according to a data analysis by Thinkful Inc. Thinkful is a technology company that operates coding bootcamps. Thinkful researcher George McIntire crunched data points using Amazon’s criteria for its HQ2 in its requests for proposals. “We used the characteristics they laid out, along with modern data science techniques, to project Amazon’s most likely choice for their new HQ,” McIntire writes. His analysis also pegs Washington D.C. as first followed by Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Austin, Minneapolis and Baltimore. Los Angeles is 11th, Denver 12th, Sacramento 24th and Phoenix 26th. Some states and regions are offering Amazon big incentives, tax breaks and free land to help improve their chances. Bids from Arizona aren’t heavy with incentives. The East Coast locations offer large labor pools, corporate and technology talent and time zone diversity for Seattle-based Amazon. They also have high costs including labor and taxes.