Amazon will not be building their second headquarters in San Antonio, but the city's economy could still be getting a major boost, 1200 WOAI news reports.
The online retail giant, this week, announced their finalists. The only two Texas cities to make the cut are Austin and Dallas. Texas Economist Ray Perryman says, if Amazon picks the state capitol, there would likely be a spillover effect that boosts the entire central Texas economy.
"We see this all the time," he says. "We're seeing this right now with the Toyota headquarters in the Dallas area."
When Toyota moved their North American headquarters to Plano, it had a ripple effects across the Metroplex. Perryman sees the same thing happening to the similar I-35 corridor between Austin and San Antonio.
"San Antonio has really developed in recent years in terms of being a hub for medical technology," he explains. "And there would be a lot of companies that deal with Amazon that are in that space."
San Antonio and Bexar County famously because the first big city to bow out of the Amazon HQ2 sweepstakes. In a letter penned by Mayor Ron Nirenberg and County Judge Nelson Wolff, they told CEO Jeff Bezos that it was not worth the massive investment.
"Sure, we have a competitive toolkit of incentives, but blindly giving away the farm isn’t our style,” they wrote.
If Amazon picks Austin, San Antonio could land all the benefits of having the biggest retailer in their backyard without spending a penny.
Since the year 2000, Amazon has received more than $1 billion in public subsidies for its fulfillment, sortation centers, data centers and film productions.