Amazon searches for second HQ as it outgrows Seattle
Amazon has outgrown its original headquarters in Seattle, where it's been based for over 20 years, and is looking elsewhere to set up a second base, expected to more than double the size of its footprint. Amazon currently houses around 40,000 employees in Seattle and has driven considerable growth in the area; a similar impact is expected wherever it chooses to sets up its second HQ.

Amazon's (AMZN) surprise announcement Thursday that it plans to look for a second corporate headquarters in North America is likely to set off a bidding war among cities and municipalities, eager for a bite at the $38 billion in economic growth potential the company has promised with a second HQ.

The company gave some clues about what it wants for its cheekily named "HQ2" -- a location similar to its Seattle campus that is urban or suburban, well-connected to transit and in a metro area with at least 1 million people. But beyond that, the fact that it's going through a public process and accepting bids suggest it's open to looking far and wide -- and willing to be swayed by generous state and municipal tax breaks whipped up by local governments.

"It's unusual to go through a [request for proprosal] process, essentially shopping for a new location before any vetting is done on their own for a new location," said Dennis Donovan, president of WDG Consulting, a location search company.

The U.S. has 55 metro areas with a population over 1 million. Excluding Seattle itself and cities in Puerto Rico (an unlikely choice considering the U.S. territory's fiscal issues and legal status), that leaves 53.

Though Amazon specified a city larger than 1 million, most experts predict the behemoth will need a much larger metropolitan area.

"Amazon is so large that it itself is a place-maker and a place-changer," said Susan Wachter, co-director of the Penn Institute for Urban Research at the University of Pennsylvania. "It cannot put itself down in the middle of nowhere because it would overwhelm whatever was there."

That leaves out college towns like State College, Pennsylvania, or Ann Arbor, Michigan, where more than half of the population is college-educated but which lack proximity to major metro centers, along with their infrastructure.

"Amazon is a prototypical innovation economy company. It relies on a lot of workers with a lot of technical training," said Joseph Parilla, a fellow in the Metropolitan Policy program at the Brookings Institute. "We're looking at a combination of factors that might make an attractive labor market, like the quantity and quality of the college-educated force."

Among the many factors Amazon listed, that's the one that weighs above all others: talent. All the experts who spoke with CBS News for this story said the size and quality of the potential workforce would be a big factor for the project's location, which promises to hire 50,000 people at six-figure salaries.

That also means the places Amazon already has fulfillment centers won't necessarily have an advantage because those centers tend to employ hourly workers with lower-skilled people.

A third of U.S. adults have a bachelor's degree, so to find relatively high-educated cities, CBS News looked at metro areas where more than 33 percent of the population has a college degree or higher.

Twenty-six cities fit this criteria:

Metro area State Population Percent with bachelor's degree New York-Newark-Jersey City NY 20,153,634 38.40 Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim CA 13,310,447 32.70 Chicago-Naperville-Elgin IL 9,512,999 36.00 Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington TX 7,233,323 33.40 Washington-Arlington-Alexandria DC 6,131,977 49.30 Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington PA 6,070,500 36.00 Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell GA 5,789,700 37.00 Boston-Cambridge-Newton MA 4,794,447 46.00 San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward CA 4,679,166 47.20 Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington MN 3,551,036 40.30 San Diego-Carlsbad CA 3,317,749 37.20 Denver-Aurora-Lakewood CO 2,853,077 41.80 Baltimore-Columbia-Towson MD 2,798,886 38.60 Charlotte-Concord-Gastonia NC 2,474,314 33.50 Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro OR 2,424,955 37.90 Pittsburgh PA 2,342,299 33.00 Kansas City MO 2,104,509 35.80 Austin-Round Rock TX 2,056,405 42.60 Columbus OH 2,041,520 35.10 San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara CA 1,978,816 48.70 Nashville-Davidson--Murfreesboro--Franklin TN 1,865,298 33.60 Milwaukee-Waukesha-West Allis WI 1,572,482 33.90 Raleigh NC 1,302,946 44.40 Richmond VA 1,281,708 35.20 Hartford-West Hartford-East Hartford CT 1,206,836 38.30 Rochester NY 1,078,879 37.30

Note: The Los Angeles metro, where 32.7 percent of adults have at least a bachelor's degree, fell below the educational cutoff, but it was included on this list due to its size and because its entertainment industry is potentially important to Amazon. Source: U.S. Census/American Community Survey, 2015 estimates

Beyond that, the particular qualities that Amazon wants aren't always easy to find in combination -- especially considering the facility's size.

"You need a place that has enough land to put a site in. That can be a challenge for some of the places with the most sophisticated transit systems," said Parilla. Conversely, places with more land, like Atlanta, Denver and Houston, tend to have relatively less transit.

One thing that likely won't have much of an impact? The subsidies that the state or city offers, experts said -- although tax breaks might make a difference if two top-tier cities competed that were otherwise very similar.

"I often tell my clients that all the incentives in the world won't make the wrong location right," said Bruce Maus, a logistical consultant.

CBS News' Jillian Harding contributed reporting.