Some cities are building websites. Others are producing videos. But the City of Cleveland is tight-lipped about its bid for Amazon's second headquarters.
After Amazon announced last month that they plan to build another headquarters in North America, nearly every major city in the country has expressed interest.
That's because the headquarters would bring with it 50,000 new jobs and at least $5 billion in construction.
For Kansas City's bid, the mayor ordered 1,000 products from Amazon and used a review for each one to tell a story about the city.
Detroit launched a website and video.
New York City lit up the Empire State Building and One World Trade Center in "Amazon Orange" as part of its bid.
So what is Cleveland doing?
Keeping quiet.
When News 5 originally requested the bid from the city we got a one word response: "No."
The city sent out a press release Thursday about the bid, but it revealed little information, reading, in part:
The bid, submitted by TeamNEO and GCP on behalf of the partners, portrays the city’s and county’s economic momentum, livability, geographic advantages and other assets. The proposal portrays the numerous elements and assets of Cleveland that make us unique and demonstrates our community’s capacity to successfully attract Amazon’s HQ2. The Cleveland proposal is proprietary information and therefore details will not be disclosed.
This approach is not unusual for the city, though. It's not all that surprising they are going without the bells and whistles.
When the City of Cleveland went after the 2008 Republican National Convention, they had the whole shebang — fireworks, etc. They didn't get it.
Then, they took the opposite approach for the 2016 GOP convention, flying under the radar. It seemed to work.
So, will this approach work for Amazon? Who knows. But Cuyahoga County Executive Armond Budish said Thursday he is proud of what they accomplished.
“Our team has been working days, nights and weekends for weeks to put together a strong bid proposal," he said. "Time and again, we have demonstrated the ability to tackle major initiatives and be agile when we see a significant opportunity. While this is an extremely competitive situation, we are confident in what Cleveland has to offer and excited at the prospect of being Amazon’s second home.”
News 5's John Kosich contributed to this report.
