Toronto is on the Amazon short list for their new HQ2 - a Burlington property is mentioned in the Toronto bid.

By Staff

January 18th, 2018

BURLINGTON, ON

When Toronto Global put in their bid to be the location for what is being called HQ2 – the second headquarters Amazon wants to set up mention was made in that document of a piece of land on Upper Middle Road east of Appleby Line – known as Bronte Meadows.

Part of the bid made had to include the transit infrastructure of the site.

The document that Toronto Global submitted a number of possible locations – Bronte Meadows was one of them.

An aerial view of the 184-acre site on Bronte Road.

What is just a little ironic is that the Paletta interests have been trying to get what is defined as employment land changed to a residential designation.

Amazon announced today it had whittled down the list of 238 bidders to a short list of 20. Toronto was the only Canadian city to make the list.

One of the showcased sites in the Toronto Global bid was the Burlington’s Bronte-Meadows, a 184-acre site billed as having “campus-style development” potential.

Upper Middle Road looking east towards Burloak – prime commercial.

The “Toronto Region” lauded in the bid also includes Hamilton. The TO bid document even gives brief shout-outs to local institutions like McMaster University and Mohawk College as well as recreational highlights like our escarpment parks and the Hamilton Tiger-Cats

Amazon is said to be planning to invest more than $5 billion into the forthcoming headquarters and hire 50,000 highly paid employees in the city housing it.

Amazon had stipulated in September that it was seeking to be near a metropolitan area with more than a million people; be able to attract top technical talent; be within 45 minutes of an international airport; have direct access to mass transit; and be able to expand that headquarters to as much as 8 million square feet in the next decade. But Amazon also made clear in that it wanted tax breaks, grants and any other incentives.

The extra space will help the rapidly-growing company, which It had nearly 542,000 employees at the end of September, a 77 per cent jump from the year before. Some of that growth came from Amazon’s nearly $14 billion acquisition last year of natural foods grocer Whole Foods and its 89,000 employees.

A three dimensional view of the Bronte Meadows site on Upper Middle Road where it curves into Burloak.

The process will now shift into a new phase, with Amazon representatives communicating more directly with finalist cities as they prepare to select a winner later this year, and perhaps with cities being even more outspoken about why they should be chosen.

Amazon.com Inc. said it will make a final selection sometime this year.

You can expect this news to work its way into the municipal election campaign that is already underway – all those condominiums along Brant street just might be needed.