After Amazon, Chicago Flirts With Wooing Apple, Google To City

CHICAGO, IL — This week, Amazon announced that Chicago was one of 20 finalists it's considering for the site of the Seattle company's proposed second headquarters, HQ2. But civic and business leaders aren't putting all of their eggs — or online servers, as the case may be — into one basket when it comes to turning the Second City into Silicon City by luring other power players in the tech industry to the area. Chicago also is trying to land expansion proposals by West Coast-based Google and Apple, according to reports.

A day before Chicago learned it made the HQ2 short list, Apple said it will build a new campus apart from its base of operations in Cupertino, California, a project that could create 20,000 jobs and pump around $350 billion into the economy over the next five years, the company said in a statement Wednesday. Details on site requirements or even if Apple has already chosen a location aren't known, but Mayor Rahm Emanuel said the city would definitely make a bid for the headquarters.

"I don’t know what Apple is looking for, but whatever it is, we’re going to go compete, and we’re going to put our best foot forward," Emanuel said at a Wednesday news conference, according to the Chicago Tribune.

RELATED: Chicago Makes Amazon's Short List For 2nd Headquarters

John H. Boyd, principal of The Boyd Co., a corporate site selection consultancy in Princeton, New Jersey, told the Tribune that Chicago would probably join Atlanta, Boston, Dallas and Houston as potential candidates for Apple's new campus. Newark, New Jersey, and Reno, Nevada, where Apple recently broke ground on a new data center, also could be contenders, he said. Apple will announce the location of new campus later this year.

In October, Apple opened its new flagship store along the Chicago River, and some criticized its design — a glass exterior and a metallic roof made to resemble the company's popular MacBook laptops — couldn't handle the city's winter weather after warning signs went up for falling snow and ice. Apple, however, blamed the dangerous conditions on a software glitch that caused its heating system to temporarily break.

Another tech company flirting with Chicago — and vice versa — is Google. Crain's Chicago Business reported earlier this month that the search engine company has had discussions with city officials about creating an operations center that could employ between 1,000 to 5,000 people, the report stated. Google currently has a little more than 800 engineers and sales staff working out of offices in the Fulton Market neighborhood, the report added.

RELATED: Google Could Create Up To 5,000 Chicago Jobs In Expansion

Atlanta, Boston and Dallas — the same cities mentioned in Amazon and Apple proposals — also have been in talks with Google, whose Googleplex headquarters is in Mountain View, California, the report stated. A possible advantage for Chicago over other suitors is the relationship between Emanuel and Eric Schmidt, the executive chairman of Alphabet, Google's parent company, Crain's reports. The two know each other from their time as advisers in President Barack Obama's administration, but Schmidt has said he is stepping down as Alphabet's chairman later this month.

Google's decision could come in a few weeks, and instead of choosing to simply expand to one city, the company might decide to split its resources across multiple sites. The company has talked about expanding to nearby San Jose, California, and it recently announced the creation of a new campus in Seattle.

More via the Chicago Tribune

Apple photo by Scott Olson | Getty Images News | Getty Images; Google photo by Justin Sullivan | Getty Images News | Getty Images