Officials in San Antonio and Bexar County opted last week not to bid on Amazon’s $5 billion second headquarters, saying the city wouldn’t have been “competitive” on tax incentives and real estate.

But New York research firm Moody’s Analytics thinks otherwise.

The San Antonio-New Braunfels metropolitan area ranked 14th out of 65 U.S. metro areas vying for the Seattle e-commerce giant’s second headquarters and its promised 50,000 jobs, according to Moody’s. The Alamo City, in fact, was a better contender than Houston and the Dallas-Fort Worth area in Texas.

It ranked just below Boston, Seattle, New York, Atlanta and Austin as one of the nation's most attractive potential locations for the campus, according to Moody’s.

“It could very well be that it really reshapes an entire metro area, especially one that’s not already enormous,” said Edward Friedman, a Moody’s economist who studies Texas and its major metro areas. “San Antonio is big but it’s not Dallas or Houston or New York or L.A.”

San Antonio received high marks for its low cost of doing business and single-family home prices, Friedman said. The San Antonio area also ranked high when it came to its business-friendly environment, bolstered by the state’s lax regulatory and taxing apparatus along with the state’s economic development incentives programs, Friedman said.

More Information The best metro areas for Amazon to locate its second headquarters, according to Moody’s 1. Austin 2. Atlanta 3. Philadelphia 4. Rochester, New York 5. Pittsburgh 6. New York 7. Miami 8. Seattle 9. Portland 10. Boston 11. Salt Lake City 12. Cambridge, Massachusetts 13. Raleigh, North Carolina 14. San Antonio 15. Charlotte, North Carolina

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But the city ranked low when it came to educational attainment and its ability to supply the kinds of tech workers Amazon would need to hire for a second headquarters, Friedman said.

Roughly 27 percent of Bexar County residents held a bachelor’s degree or higher between 2011 and 2015, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

That’s lower than the national average of 29.8 percent. About 29 percent of Dallas and Houston’s Harris counties’ adult population has earned a bachelor’s degree or higher while 46 percent of Austin’s Travis County residents have a bachelor’s degree or more, Census Bureau data shows.

And not enough of those degree-holders in the San Antonio area held them in fields relevant to Amazon like computer and information sciences, engineering and mathematics, according to Moody’s.

San Antonio also received low ranks from Moody’s on quality of life, transportation and its proximity to Bezos’ $23 million mansion in the District of Columbia and the main campus in Seattle.

But a spot in Texas or the Midwest would be optimal for Amazon, shortening flight times for executives on both coasts, Friedman said.

“The center of the country makes a lot of sense,” Friedman said.

The study was released Friday — the day after Mayor Ron Nirenberg and Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff told Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos they weren’t willing to pony up tax incentives to lure the $484 billion company.

Austin topped the Moody’s list of best prospective cities for Amazon to put its giant second headquarters — citing the Texas capital’s wealth of tech companies and workers, educated workforce, low cost of living compared with other tech hubs and Amazon’s $13.7 billion acquisition of Austin-based organic grocer Whole Foods Market earlier this year among other factors.

The Dallas area came in at No. 34 on the Moody’s ranking, the Houston area ranked No. 49 and the Fort Worth area rounded out Texas cities at No. 55. All three cities got high marks for business friendliness, but each came up short in other categories.

The Dallas and Houston areas were dinged for shortcomings in transportation, according to Moody’s. Houston and Fort Worth each got low marks for quality of life. And Moody’s found Fort Worth lacking when it came to supplying the necessary workforce for Amazon.

jfechter@express-news.net | Twitter: @JFreports