Detroit's most influential real estate mogul said his team and others have been mobilized to "fully explore" the possibility of the city becoming home to Amazon.com Inc.'s planned second headquarters in North America.

Dan Gilbert, the billionaire founder and chairman of Quicken Loans Inc. and Rock Ventures LLC, said in a statement Thursday night that a "task force of internal and external people here in Detroit" has been assembled to evaluate the multibillion-dollar project the online retail behemoth has planned.

Gilbert's comments follow those of Mayor Mike Duggan's administration and Gov. Rick Snyder that indicate Detroit and Michigan are full speed ahead on pursuing Amazon's announcement Thursday of a $5 billion, 50,000-plus employee headquarters.

Gilbert, whose real estate holdings top 95 properties in and around downtown Detroit, said the city "will make an extremely strong pitch to Amazon."

A spokesman for Duggan stopped short of saying directly that the city will attempt to court Amazon.

"We will be evaluating it carefully," John Roach, Duggan's director of media relations for Duggan, said earlier Thursday. He declined to elaborate.

The Seattle-based online retail behemoth announced Thursday morning that it is accepting proposals for a massive new headquarters complex, dubbed HQ2, which would begin with a first phase of 500,000 to 1 million square feet. A request for proposals released Thursday is aimed at city or regional economic development organizations.

Gov. Rick Snyder said in a statement that the state is "perfectly positioned to become home to Amazon's next North American headquarters" because of its "wealth of talent and vastly improved business climate."

"Not only is Michigan a top-10 state for doing business and attracting 25- to 34-year-olds, our workforce is growing at a higher rate than the national average and we lead the region in inbound migration for those with bachelor's degrees or higher."

Amazon, which has about 380,000 employees, said future phases over 15-17 years could cause the project to balloon to 8 million square feet, according to the RFP.

It said the company has a preference for metropolitan areas with more than 1 million people. It also says the "ideal" site and building requirements include being within 30 miles of a population center, 45 minutes of an international airport and access to mass transit such as rail, train, subway or bus routes.

The company is open to considering buildings of 500,000 square feet or more in size, a site of about 100 acres or a series of proximate sites, not necessarily contiguous, that total that size.

Among the hurdles the region faces include an unemployment rate of 4.4 percent, meaning that finding the 50,000 or so workers Amazon expects to employ there could prove difficult, and competition from states that could offer more attractive incentive packages than Michigan.

For example, Wisconsin granted $3 billion in incentives earlier this year for a $10 billion, 13,000-worker plant for Taiwan-based Foxconn Technology Group. The national average economic development incentive package is $2,457 per job, according to the Upjohn Institute, Crain's reported in July. At that rate and Amazon's projected employment level, that's $122.85 million.

The RFP says the average annual total compensation would be in excess of $100,000 and the project would be a $5 billion-plus investment.

The document sets an Oct. 19 deadline for states and municipalities to submit their proposals. It says a location will be selected in 2018.

Other cities in the metro area are weighing their chances of attracting Amazon.

"This would certainly be a wonderful opportunity for Auburn Hills in terms of jobs and investment," said Auburn Hills Mayor Kevin McDaniel. "The requirements for this project are quite specific and our team would have to discuss options for an Amazon location that makes sense."

Asked about the soon-to-be-vacant Palace of Auburn Hills, the mayor said it could be a potential location for Amazon. "We can never rule anything out completely."

Amazon is no stranger to the region. It has an office in the 150 West Jefferson skyscraper in downtown Detroit and is working on distribution centers in Livonia, Shelby Township and Romulus.

Jeff Bezos, the founder and CEO of Amazon, is worth $83.4 billion, according to Forbes. He also owns The Washington Post, which he bought for $250 million. Amazon also recently acquired Whole Foods Market for $13.7 billion. Amazon had $136 billion in sales last year, more than double 2012's $61.1 billion.

Seattle has become "the biggest company town in America," the Seattle Times described it last month. Amazon occupies 19 percent of the city's best office space. It occupies 33 buildings totaling 8.1 million square feet and has made $3.7 billion in investment to buildings and infrastructure, according to the RFP.