Amazon HQ2 talks have Virginia city all abuzz
Crystal City site looksmore and more like awinner.
Amazon. com has held advanced discussions about the possibility of opening its highly sought-after second headquarters in CrystalCity, just outside Washington, D.C., including howquickly it would move employees there, which buildings it would occupy and how an announcement about the move would bemade to the public, according to people close to the process.
The discussions were more detailed than those the company has had regarding other locations in Northern Virginia and some other cities nationally, adding to speculation that the site in Arlington County is a front-runner to land the online retail giant’s second North American headquarters and its 50,000 jobs.
Thecompany is so close to making its choice that Crystal City’s top real estate developer, JBG Smith, has pulled some of its buildings offff the leasing market and off iffi ci al sin the area have discussed how to make an announcement to the public this month, following the mid term elections, according to public and private-sector offifficials who spoke on the condition of anonymity because Amazon has asked that the selection process remain confifidential. The company may be having similar discussionswith other fifinalists.
Two people close to the process said that if Crystal City were selected, Amazon was likely tomove an initial group of several hundred employees into 1851 S. Bell Street or 1770 Crystal Drive, two dated offiffice buildings that have been targeted for redevelopment but could be readied for occupancy by their owner, JBG Smith, in ninemonths or less. The bid also includes sites in Potomac Yard, in Alexandria.
“There’s a lot of activity,” one individual close to the process said. The person added that people “seem reallypositive, andtheyseem pretty confifident ... What we don’t know, maybe there are two or three other sites, and they’re doing the same thing. That’swhat’s scary to people around here.”
At a conference in New York on Thursday, Amazon founder and chief executive Jeffrey P. Bezos told the crowd: “Ultimately the decision will be made with intuition after gathering and studying a lot of data — for a decision like that, as far as I know, the best way tomake it is you collect asmuch data as you can, you immerse yourself inthat data but then you make the decisionwith your heart.”
After launching a real- ity show-like sweepstakes for a second home in late 2017, Amazon ha se ff ff ff ff ff f fe ct ive ly shut downdisclosures about the search in the past nine months. Twenty fifinalist cities — many of which have spent considerable time and money pursuing the company— have little information about where they stand, according to offifficials in four other fifinalist jurisdictions.
But stock market investors, online betting sites and corporate relocation experts have all declared Northern Virginia the favorite to land the so-called HQ2.
In the Washington area, the anticipation is growing as hints fifilter out that Amazon is in the fifinal stages of making a decision. .
Months ofwaitinghavenot quelled concerns about the potential pressure Amazon could place on the region’s already steep housing prices, congested roads and yawning divide between its wealthy and low-income residents.
When Bezos spoke at an Economic Club of Washington event in September, more than a dozen protesters occupied the sidewalk.