Rumours say Amazon’s HQ2 search mystery has been solved! Or has it?
WASHINGTON — Amazon.com’s search for a site for its second headquarters is now mostly playing out behind closed doors, as officials from 20 finalist locations provide the company with additional materials.
In the vacuum, the tiniest shreds of information related to the HQ2 search are being examined with a level of scrutiny normally reserved for the Zapruder film or Bryce Harper’s coming free agency.
The Amazon search is a serious matter. The chosen city could reap 50,000 jobs and $4 billion in investments from the company. Taxpayers may be asked to foot billions of dollars of subsidies to win the deal. Housing markets and traffic patterns may be dramatically affected by the company’s decision. A group backed by the Koch Brothers published a video opposing subsidies for the project. On the other hand, former Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe suggested recently, in an interview, that “whoever wins this thing is going to run for president.”
As anticipation builds, new clues surface seemingly every day about where Amazon is headed, one revelation overtaking the next. So why not indulge? Here’s a sample of guesses.
1. Amazon is going to Austin, as it cunningly revealed in its Super Bowl ad.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos (who owns The Washington Post) recently starred in the company’s Super Bowl spot. But that’s not what caught the attention of folks in the capital of Texas.
The ad opens with an Alexa device giving a toothbrushing woman a report on the weather in Austin. As Texas Monthly put it, “it’s a big ol’ clue, as far as we’re concerned.” Alexa is later asked to play country music, another obvious reference to Austin! (Unless, of course, it is nod to Nashville)
But that’s not all. The spot ends with actor Anthony Hopkins feeding snacks to a peacock, which just so happens to be some-
thing of an informal mascot for the city due to the bird’s prevalence in Mayfield Park.
2. Amazon is going to Maryland because it hired someone who worked there.
When Amazon announced its list of 20 finalists, the company included a comment from executive Holly Sullivan who said the search helped the company learn “about many new communities across North America that we will consider as locations for future infrastructure investment and job creation.”
One place Sullivan presumably didn’t need to read up on was Montgomery County, Maryland, where her very job was to grow the county’s economy as president of the now-defunct Montgomery Business Development Corp. Current Montgomery County economic development executive David Petr told the Baltimore Sun that “I don’t think Holly has an influence either way.” But a state delegate told the newspaper he thinks “it’s a good thing” for the state’s chances.
3. Amazon is going to Northern Virginia, as demonstrated by its employees’ interest in environmentally friendly buildings there.
Everyone from the New York Times to the Drudge Report noted a recent report from ARLnow.com, which discovered by looking through its online readership data that it had received thousands of clicks from an Amazon.com domain on an article titled “County Wins Top Environmental Award from U.S. Green Building Council.”
The site reported “the vast majority” of some 6,000 views appeared to come from Amazon and that the traffic source “appears to be an internal Amazon.com page devoted to its HQ2 search.” The article goes on to report how Arlington County, Va., was the first place in the country to earn top certification for use of green and resilient buildings — exactly the type of buildings Amazon would like to fill.