New York City said to be among finalists for Amazon’s HQ2

The company is now in "late-stage talks" over the location of its second North American headquarters

Amazon's search for a city to host its second North American headquarters (aka HQ2) may finally be nearing an end, after hundreds of submissions, lots of speculation, and over-the-top efforts by cities to woo the company's billionaire founder, Jeff Bezos. After announcing a list of finalists earlier this year (including both New York City and Newark), Amazon is reportedly close to picking a city for HQ2—and once again, NYC is among the top contenders.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Amazon is now in "late-stage talks" with several of the finalist cities, including New York, Dallas, and Crystal City, Virginia. (The Washington Post reported over the weekend that Crystal City had emerged as a frontrunner, with some real estate agents taking buildings off the market in anticipation of Amazon's arrival.)

What that means for NYC at the moment is unclear, but city and state officials have been working to woo the tech giant to the five boroughs since submitting a bid last October. The New York Daily News reported last week that Governor Andrew Cuomo has personally met with Amazon executives in recent weeks, and even (jokingly, apparently) offered to rename the toxic Newtown Creek—a Superfund site, mind you—for the company if it plopped HQ2 in Long Island City.

That Queens neighborhood was one of four pitched as a potential location for HQ2 in NYC, along with the Financial District, Midtown West, and the "Brooklyn Tech Triangle" (encompassing Downtown Brooklyn, Dumbo, and the Navy Yard). Cuomo has also reportedly offered Amazon "hundreds of millions of dollars" in subsidies if the company puts down roots in NYC, according to the Daily News.

If Amazon does indeed settle in New York, it would radically reshape not only the neighborhood it calls home, but the city at large. The company says its new headquarters could create as many as 50,000 jobs for whichever city it lands in, along with billions of dollars of investment. But it could also drive up the cost of housing and further strain the city's already crumbling transit systems.