Amazon Picks New York, Northern Virginia For HQ2 [Update: Confirmed] (washingtonpost.com)

The Washington Post is reporting that Amazon has picked New York's Long Island City and Arlington County's Crystal City neighborhoods as the company's second headquarters (Warning: source paywalled; alternative source). The two locations will split the duty and will reportedly bring the cities an infusion of jobs and tax revenue. From the report: Amazon will open major new outposts in Northern Virginia's Crystal City and New York City, splitting its much-sought investment of up to 50,000 jobs between the two East Coast sites. The choice of Crystal City in Arlington County as one of the winners would cement Northern Virginia's reputation as a magnet for business and potentially reshape the Washington region into an East Coast outpost of Silicon Valley over the next decade.

It also represents a victory for New York Mayor Bill de Blasio (D) and Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo (D), who had joked that he would change his name to "Amazon Cuomo" if necessary to land the prize. Amazon's decision to split the project rather than open a second headquarters on par with its Seattle campus has angered some who said the company had ginned up competition among cities only to change the rules midstream. Some said it was unfair that the company seemed to be considering only sites in more affluent communities. Updated on November 13, 15:10 GMT: Amazon on Tuesday confirmed that it had selected New York City and Northern Virginia for new headquarters. In a statement, Jeff Bezos said, "We are excited to build new headquarters in New York City and Northern Virginia. These two locations will allow us to attract world-class talent that will help us to continue inventing for customers for years to come. The team did a great job selecting these sites, and we look forward to becoming an even bigger part of these communities."

Comments

You'd think

[bobstreo]

if you were planning on more than one location, you wouldn't pick the same coast, because of hurricanes and similar electrical grids.

Re:You'd think

[rikkards]

Might also be that Bezos has houses in both cities and both planned locations are within something like 6 miles of his places...

Almost seems like this was some big con doesn't it?

Re: You'd think

[rednip]

50,000 jobs weren't all going to be 'new to the company', maybe not even mostly. Surely a number would be high level transfers from other locations, including DC and NY. Executives avoid moving as much as anyone, while some will make the jump to a new city, most will stay 'closer to home' (often family) and resist moving power to a new complex. So there might have been very real internal forces pulling them 'home'.

Also, while Amazon called it a search for HQ2, it's not uncommon for a company to have divisional HQs. The division which would easily be likely to gain its own HQ would be AWS. However, AWS has a growth problem in that many retailers (and some other companies) while they like the platform, don't like adding to a competitor's bottom line. Add to a market cap which is creating its own weather (e.g. disproportionately affecting it) in the stock market and regulators sniffing around a forced breakup and you could understand the wisdom of Amazon doing it on their own terms. So I think that this has always been a search for a home of a spit off AWS and there is also a decent chance that they'll spit into a third company (perhaps software), with a choice of two HQ2s this seems likely.

have a long shot guess that the reason why it took so long is that Amazon will announce both the HQs and the split up at the same time.

Re:You'd think

[Mashiki]

300 miles apart, last hurricane that hit the area was what 450-500mi across? Yep, not going to be hit by one storm at all. Or those 750-1300mi long rain/snow/ice/freezing rain storms that are common through the plains-texas-georgia then smashing up along the east coast because of all that warm tropical air. Just think a little bit, a winter storm in the US can knock out electricity from Ontario Canada through to Georgia to Kentucky, dump 3' of snow all along the east coast along I75, and you can have another day or two of it still coming at you with a complete mixed bag including a few inches of freezing rain, and the tail end of it is spawning t-storms in Florida.

Worst possible places IMHO

[Indy1]

massively overcrowded, horrific traffic, insane cost of living.

Unless someone likes living in an over crowded over priced city with a pile of east coasters.....No thanks!

Re:Worst possible places IMHO

[PrimaryConsult]

If you're driving in either of these places you're doing it wrong. Find the nearest park and ride, take train, profit.

And nothing has changed

[vix86]

I had been hoping that Amazon would choose a city that could handle to have a large company like Amazon show up; instead, Amazon picked two cities/regions that already have ridiculous issues with real estate. NYC at least has a semi-functional public transit system, but my understanding with DC is that the metro doesn't stretch out far enough to accommodate most people living in the suburbs, resulting in long commutes. There are a number of cities that would have been a better choice and probably handled Amazon's impact on real estate much better (Atlanta, Austin, Dallas, Miami).

Re:And nothing has changed

[MrL0G1C]

The HQ2 contest was a scam all along, Bezels has already decided where he wanted to put the new HQs and indeed Bozos already had residences at those 2 new cities not far from where the new HQs will be. It was a ploy by Beelze' to reduce taxes as much as possible and of course it worked.

Re:And nothing has changed

[MrL0G1C]

PS
https://www.charlotteobserver....
"Amazon.com this month narrowed down 238 applicants for its second headquarters to 20 cities, but experts say it got something even from the losing bidders: A rich trove of information that can benefit the company for years to come."
"To dozens of cities across the United States, Amazonâ(TM)s widely publicized search for a âoesecond headquartersâ looked like thousands of new jobs, up for grabs. To Pivot co-host Scott Galloway, it now looks like a âoeruse.â

https://www.recode.net/2018/11...
"I lease office space all the time for my businesses and I always tell my real estate agent, âWe can lease any office in the world as long as I can walk there from where I live,â(TM)â Galloway said on the latest episode. âoeAmazon is now talking about having three headquarters, Seattle, Crystal City and Long Island City. The Bezosâ(TM)s also own three homes, and the average distance from those three homes to a headquarters is 6.4 miles."

Re:And nothing has changed

[jittles]

I had been hoping that Amazon would choose a city that could handle to have a large company like Amazon show up; instead, Amazon picked two cities/regions that already have ridiculous issues with real estate. NYC at least has a semi-functional public transit system, but my understanding with DC is that the metro doesn't stretch out far enough to accommodate most people living in the suburbs, resulting in long commutes. There are a number of cities that would have been a better choice and probably handled Amazon's impact on real estate much better (Atlanta, Austin, Dallas, Miami).

I see you have never been to Atlanta, Austin, Dallas, or Miami. None of those places have adequate transit, already have terrible traffic, and, in the case of Miami, incredibly expensive real estate. I'm just really glad that my city did not get chosen.

Crystal City = Pentagon

[DirkDaring]

Going after military money, makes sense to me.

Re:yes but that's NOT okay

[forkfail]

But it's not perfectly fine for Cuomo and de Blasio to give said tax breaks.

NYC is if not the highest, then close to the highest taxed city in the nation.

We have a federal, a state, and a city graduated income tax. And believe you me, everything else has a tax or a fee here.

Amazon is going to put significant load on the city. Rents are going to go up, the MTA will be further overloaded.

They want to be at the center of the financial world, fine. Let them pay the taxes everybody else pays.