Manatee homebuilder bids for $5B Amazon HQ

MANATEE COUNTY — Manatee County, albeit a long shot, could be home to the next headquarters for online giant Amazon — a project that would include up to 50,000 employees and some $5 billion in capital investments.

The bid, officially submitted Oct. 16 by FedEx to Amazon's original Seattle headquarters, comes from Sarasota-Manatee homebuilder Carlos Beruff. The site he proposed is 935 acres in north Manatee County, on the Manatee-Hillsborough County line, just off Interstate 75. Beruff, founder of Medallion Homes, bought the land for about $5 million in 2013.

“We can build a city for them here,” Beruff tells Coffee Talk. “They will have a blank palette.”