The time has come.
Amazon has chosen Arlington, Virginia and New York City for its second headquarters, according to several reports.
The company has said HQ2 – now split in half – will bring a combined $5 billion in construction investments and as many as 50,000 high-paying jobs to the two metros. But it remains unclear how many jobs and how much economic impact may be coming to Arlington County and the greater D.C. area.
Amazon officially made the announcement on the decision as on Tuesday morning. We’ll update this story as more details come in.
The e-commerce giant had narrowed the pool of 238 candidates across North America to a list of 20 cities in the U.S. and Canada in January. Here’s a timeline of its HQ2 search.
Amazon is no stranger to the area. Its U.S. public policy team is headquartered in D.C., along with members of the Amazon Web Services public sector team. That’s in addition to the 1.9 million square feet of data center space owned by Amazon in Northern Virginia. Amazon Web Services first came to Northern Virginia for its data centers in 2006.
Amazon’s headquarters in Seattle includes 33 buildings comprising 8.1 million square feet. It has paid its 40,000-plus employees there a combined $26 billion and spent $1.4 billion on utilities and maintenance alone.
The company’s presence there has fueled office construction and spurred jobs in sectors serving its high-paid employees, but rapid growth has been met with rising home prices, higher rents and traffic congestion.
On the other hand, Amazon reports that 233,000 annual hotel nights are bought in Seattle by visiting Amazonians and guests, and that it paid $43 million into the city’s public transportation system as employees’ transportation benefit.
Stay tuned to Atlanta Inno for more news on Amazon’s HQ2 decision.
