Last year Amazon announced their plan to expand and build a second headquarters. With the expectation of a $5-billion (U.S) investment and 50,000 jobs to be created, the new location is promised to be equivalent in size to the Seattle Headquarters. In order to select a new location, Amazon asked communities across North America to submit bids – and received 238 applications spanning across the U.S, Canada and Mexico.

On Thursday January 11th, Amazon narrowed its applications and released its short list. Twelve Canadian communities submitted proposals. Six of which being Montreal, Vancouver, Halifax, Calgary, Winnipeg, and Edmonton as well as another six within Ontario. Out of 238 applications, twenty proposals were selected by Amazon – and Toronto is one of them!

No other Canadian community made it on the list, however, Holly Sullivan (Amazon Public Policy) stated, “Thank you to all 238 communities that submitted proposals. Getting from 238 to 20 was very tough – all the proposals showed tremendous enthusiasm and creativity. Through this process we learned about many new communities across North America that we will consider as locations for future infrastructure investment and job creation.”

Toronto’s regional bid offers sites downtown for potential HQ2 locations, including a 100-acre “east-harbour” site in central Toronto said to be near the new Google Sidewalk Labs mixed-use neighbourhood, a site in downtown Mississauga next to the Square One Shopping Centre, as well as eight other large locations just outside the city.

Here’s hoping Amazon narrows its list down to the six.