UTD submitted a proposal to host Amazon’s second headquarters when the company requested bids for a new site to complement its Seattle location.

On Sept. 7, Amazon released the application and is accepting offers from cities across North America.

Calvin Jamison, vice president of UTD, said he could see reasons why Amazon could move to UTD, including the students, the proximity to President George Bush Turnpike and Highway 75, the possibility of a DART station near campus and the multiple corporations within a five-mile radius of campus, including Toyota and State Farm. Amazon would be an additional partnership to UTD’s current one with Texas Instruments.

“The message to UT Dallas is this: We have an extraordinary talent pool that every major corporation that moves to this area wants to take advantage of, because probably two-thirds of the graduates that finish UT Dallas will or want to stay in the area and that’s positive for corporations who are looking to grow their talent pool,” Jamison said.

Bill Sproull, president and CEO of the Richardson Chamber of Commerce, works with the university. He said UTD had one of the largest available areas in Richardson, approximately 100 acres north of campus, and is one of the best sources of talent in the region. He said having Amazon come to UTD would be a source of opportunities for the school.

“It could quite possibly be transformational for the university, in the sense that you’d have a huge employer right next to campus, do a lot of work … with student internships and research,” he said. “Just the energy that it would bring, the resources potentially to the UT System and to UT Dallas.”

Amazon is expected to announce the new location in 2018.