Two York County sites included in Charlotte’s bid for Amazon HQ2

York County economic development officials included information about two Fort Mill sites in Charlotte’s bid for the highly-sought-after second Amazon headquarters.

The two sites — Kingsley Park and Southbridge — are among 21 possible locations listed in Charlotte’s bid for Amazon to consider for its HQ2, as the project is known.

David Swenson, York County’s economic development director, said Kingsley Park and Southbridge were submitted because they are office parks with good accessibility to major roads and Charlotte Douglas International Airport.

Kingsley is a 626-acre retail-restaurant complex, home to company headquarters for LPL Financial and Lash Group. The Lash Group, a health care consulting firm, announced it would double its workforce to 2,400 workers over the next several years. LPL officials say they are expanding to about 3,000 jobs.

Southbridge is a 350-acre development off Gold Hill Road, the former Charlotte Knights stadium site. Eventually, it is expected to contain about 4.5 million square feet of office space in dozens of buildings that would be mixed with apartments, retail and hotel space, according to Charlotte Business Journal.

Seattle-based Amazon laid out a detailed wish list for its new headquarters earlier this year.

Leaders say they’re looking to settle into a metropolitan area with more than one million residents. They want the area to have on-site access to mass tranist, a commute of 45 minutes or less to an international airport and easy access to a major highway.

Swenson said officials expect to hear by December if the Charlotte region is still in the running.

Two weeks ago, Charlotte officials shipped a custom-made wooden box containing it’s proposal to Amazon headquarters, hoping to seal what would be a $5 billion, 50,000-job mega-deal. The proposal includes a five-minute video, which showcases Charlotte’s hot spots and features cameos from Rock Hill and Fort Mill.

The region’s bid included 21 sites in Mecklenburg, York, Gaston, Cabarrus, Iredell and Rowan counties for Amazon to consider. North and South Carolina officials worked together to provide the information in the bid.

The company said it received 238 proposals from cities and regions all over North America.

“It’s a competitive project with a lot of competitors in it,” Swenson said. “From York County’s perspective, we’re part of a region that wants to win these types of projects. We see the success of the corporate headquarters that we’ve brought in and feel like we can compete on the national scale.”

This story was originally published November 3, 2017 at 12:22 PM with the headline "Two York County sites included in Charlotte’s bid for Amazon HQ2."