SALISBURY — RowanWorks CEO Rod Crider says Rowan County could qualify as a location for Amazon’s much-anticipated second headquarters.

Crider said Rowan is part of the 16-county region known as Charlotte USA, which means it could be listed as a potential location in Charlotte’s response to Amazon’s request for proposals from locations interested in being selected for the headquarters.

A little over a week ago, an Amazon news release said the company will be looking for a location to build a second North American headquarters.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said the second headquarters — known as HQ2 — would be a “full equal” to Amazon’s Seattle headquarters.

“Amazon HQ2 will bring billions of dollars in up-front and ongoing investments and tens of thousands of high-paying jobs,” Bezos said in the release. “We’re excited to find a second home.”

Crider said he and RowanWorks Vice President Scott Shelton have been in touch with the Charlotte Regional Partnership, which is the coordinating organization of Charlotte USA.

The Charlotte Regional Partnership will submit a proposal to Amazon on the behalf of all its 16 counties.

Crider said the agency will solicit suggestions from the 16 counties in order to find the Charlotte region’s most competitive site options.

From the options submitted, Crider said, the agency will select the sites that most closely align with Amazon’s needs and then submit those options to Amazon.

In the news release, Amazon included a list of things that it wants in its second headquarters city. They include having a metropolitan area with more than 1 million people; having a community that could attract and retain strong technical talent; and being within 45 minutes of an international airport.

Because Rowan County is being marketed as part of the larger Charlotte metropolitan area, it fits all those qualifications.

Crider said Amazon is also looking for 100 acres that could eventually hold an 8-million-square-foot building or series of buildings.

He said RowanWorks is in the process of looking for properties that could fit Amazon’s needs.

“Scott (Shelton) and I talked about the (Amazon request) and our ability to meet those requirements,” Crider said. “There’s a tremendous amount of interest from every community in the land that is near having the requirements listed.”

Crider said that in part because of the broad qualifications that Amazon listed, there will be a lot of competition with other metropolitan areas.

“Everybody wants it,” Crider said. “I don’t think you could measure its impact. It’d be more than a boost.”

Other U.S. cities that could qualify include Los Angeles; Austin, Texas; Miami; and Chicago. Cities in Canada and Mexico could also qualify.

In its news release, Amazon said it expects to invest more than $5 billion in capital improvements and to hire as many as 50,000 people for jobs that could pay an average of $100,000 annually.

Crider said that even if Amazon doesn’t come to Rowan County specifically, having the second headquarters anywhere in the Charlotte area would be “transformational.”

“Just imagine all of those people and the spending power they would have,” Shelton said. “Imagine what it would do for our restaurants and shops.”

The deadline for metropolitan areas and cities to submit a response to Amazon is Oct. 19.

Amazon is not expected to make a decision until 2018. 

Contact reporter Jessica Coates at 704-797-4222.