Despite not winning the bid for Amazon's new headquarters, those who organized the Toronto proposal aren't expressing that much disappointment.
"We went into this knowing we were a long shot and what we really wanted to do was to make sure that we were raising the profile of the Toronto region at every opportunity and we did that," said Global Toronto CEO Toby Lennox.
Toronto was the only Canadian city on Amazon's short list of 20 cities and Lennox said the way the city submitted its bid deserves mention.
The Toronto proposal was one of two that was made public, the only one posted online and was downloaded 17,000 times.
Lennox said he's also proud the city did not offer massive tax breaks, unlike the winning bids of New York and Crystal City in northern Virginia.
"Amazon is collecting $2.8 billion in incentives and good on them for getting it," Lennox said. "I just don't think that we felt that we could hold our heads up to anybody else in the community, anybody, any of the other Canadian tech companies who are working so hard and look them in the eye and say, yeah you know it's okay we gave another company $2.8 billion that we're not willing to give to you."
"We didn't think that was right."
Toronto Mayor John Tory echoed that sentiment.
"There is no other place in North America which can boast all in one location the same talent, the same quality of life, the same vibrancy and economic strength," he said in a statement. "Toronto Global estimates this process was worth approximately $143 million in advertising value for our region – an incredible boost to our ongoing efforts to promote Toronto around the world."
NEWSTALK 1010 Political Analyst Scott Reid worked on the bid and said there was over $1 billion of business investment in the GTA in the month of September alone.
"We are working with gas in this area and it's all becuase of talent, we got really good trained workers and we got a huge bumper crop of graduates, particularly in the tech area," he said.
As for the future, Lennox said another longterm goal has been pitching Toronto for future ventures and while there's no follow-up appointments set up yet, once there are, they'll make their case.
"What about establishing your AI research centre, what about about doing your advance work in block chain, what about doing food and beverage work," he said. "We're going to take it to them and say look, you now know so much about us and the value proposition, let's go."
Amazon already has some offices in Toronto, such as in artificial intelligence work.
Some locations tried to stand out with stunts, but Amazon made clear that it really wanted incentives, like tax breaks and grants. Amazon also had sought to be near a metropolitan area with more than a million people, among other criteria.
The company received 238 proposals before narrowing the list to 20 in January.
Amazon had stipulated that it wanted to be near a metropolitan area with more than a million people; be within 45 minutes of an international airport; have direct access to mass transit; and have room to expand. It also wanted to able to attract top technical talent and be able to expand the headquarters to as much as eight million square feet in the next decade.
Amazon said it could spend more than US$5 billion to build its second headquarters over the next 17 years. The two locations combined would be about the same size as the company's current home in Seattle, which has 33 buildings, 23 restaurants and houses 40,000 employees.
The company isn't leaving Seattle, and Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos has said the new headquarters will be ``a full equal'' to its current home.
The extra space will help the rapidly growing company.
With files from Associated Press