As Amazon deadline looms, Philly promotes livability
The city will submit its proposal on Thursday morning to bring Amazon's second North American headquarters to Philadelphia.
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With the end of a three-part video series, Philadelphia finalized its message to Amazon by spotlighting the city’s livability.
“We have all these huge cultural institutions,” said Osagie Imasogie, founder of Iroko Pharmaceuticals. “And the beauty about them is that you can walk to all of them in a day.”
Isamogie is one of the Philadelphia business and community leaders interviewed for the series' final installment, which was released on Wednesday. The videos are a project of the city’s Amazon HQ2 Coalition, a group that aims to show Amazon why the Seattle-based company should select Philadelphia for its second North American headquarters.
The video series is part of the city’s week-long #PhillyDelivers campaign leading up to Amazon’s proposal deadline on Thursday morning.
For the project, the coalition interviewed nearly 30 representatives from the Philadelphia region’s business, culture, arts, culinary, academic, athletic and real estate sectors. In addition to Isamogie, the final video includes interviews with:
Jess Edelstein, co-founder of PiperWai;
Randy LoBasso of the Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia;
Trevor Pritchett, COO of Yards Brewing Company;
Natalie W. Nixon of Figure 8 Thinking;
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And Rich Landau and Kate Jacoby, co-owners of Vedge.
Along with Philadelphia’s walkability and bike-ability, the final installment of the series highlights the unique vibe created by the city’s historic ambiance.
“You can’t appreciate it until you leave the city, and you realize this doesn’t exist anywhere else,” Landau said. “There’s all this cobblestone and these narrow little streets, and these quaint old buildings. Once you get out of Philadelphia, and you see the rest of the United States, you recognize how special Philadelphia is.”
On Monday, the city released the first video in the series, which highlights Philadelphia's logistical strengths, including location, global accessibility and connectivity. The second video, which calls attention to Philadelphia’s diversity and highly educated workforce, was released on Tuesday.
Last week, economists Mark Zandi and Adam Ozimek of Moody’s Analytics identified Philadelphia as a top contender for Amazon’s second headquarters based on these factors: business environment, human capital, cost, quality of life, transportation and geography. In the analysis, Philadelphia ranked third behind Austin and Atlanta.
At a Greater Philadelphia Hispanic Chamber of Commerce event on Thursday, Mayor Jim Kenney commended the city’s Latino community for its contributions to improving Philadelphia’s business corridors and neighborhood schools, making the city an attractive possibility for companies looking to expand, such as Amazon.
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