The long wait is over. Amazon is said to be in talks to build its second headquarters project in the Long Island City section of Queens, New York, and the Crystal City area of Arlington, Virginia, The New York Times reported on Monday evening, citing people familiar with the plans.
The decision follows more than a year of speculation and lobbying by communities around the United States and Canada.
Amazon will now get to work building and planning its new headquarters. It says it hopes to have at least part of the new campus operational sometime in 2019.
The saga of HQ2 began in September 2017, when the company put out its official request for proposals. In the request, Amazon promised 50,000 jobs and $5 billion in investment to the new host city. Nearly every major metro area in the US threw its hat in the ring.
Amazon had whittled down the list to 20 by December but has barely made a peep about the selection process otherwise.
The Wall Street Journal reported on November 5 that the e-commerce giant had decided to construct its second headquarters in two different cities, with 25,000 employees at each of the campuses.
The evidence had long been pointing toward the Washington, DC metro area, which had submitted three separate regions for consideration. Amazon joined DC’s chamber of commerce in August. Add to that the fact that Amazon has already had its public policy and lobbying operations in the district, and the US capital seemed like a shoo-in.
In recent months, the betting odds had quite literally zeroed in on Northern Virginia. The region is in what has been referred to as the “bull’s-eye of America’s internet,” adding to its chances. A local news site called ARLnow.com said it had seen an unusual spike in traffic from Amazon to an article from December titled “County Wins Top Environmental Award from US Green Building Council” explaining how Virginia’s Arlington County was the first in the US to be selected for an environmental award.
Once the sites are confirmed, Amazon will begin the more tedious job of working with local business leaders to integrate itself into the community.
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