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And The Winner Is….
After a year-long search, promising a “full equal” to its current Seattle HQ, Amazon splits its second headquarters between *two* cities.
Bait & switch?
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Backstory: Amazon’s Hunt
Required: metro area with 1M population, int’l airport, mass transit, quality higher education, an educated workforce, & business-friendly environment.
Promised: a full equal to current Seattle campus, $5B construction investment & 50,000 jobs.
But, Er, Um...HQ2 *AND* 3
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“… much less radical move than many imagined … rich places getting richer.”
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Crystal City, VA
- Arlington area, 3 miles west of D.C., eager for new economic energy after 24K federal jobs moved out in the early 2000s.
- Known for its outdated, ’70-80s commercial buildings connected by underground tunnel with shops & restaurants.
- Concerns over steep housing prices, congested roads, & pricing out of lower-income residents.
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Long Island City, NY
- NYC neighborhood, 3 miles east of Times Square, is an old manufacturing area in Queens.
- Even before Amazon, it is one of the fastest-developing areas with 9K+ new apartments & homes built in 8 years.
- Struggling to handle the growth with crowded schools and infrastructure issues like sewage backups with heavy rain.
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Bigger Picture:
Why it Matters
- 238 cities in U.S. & Canada shared taxpayer-funded research trying to woo Amazon.
- Giving Amazon an invaluable database & insight into what types of incentives communities are willing to offer as the tech giant expands building possible data and logistics centers, etc.
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Two, winning cities will split the 50,000 jobs and $5B in investment evenly. Amazon also announced it will open a customer fulfillment center in Nashville, creating 5,000 jobs. The average salary for all 3, new locations? Over $150K, according to Amazon.
Read
Sources
- Amazon HQ2 decision: Amazon splits prize between Crystal City and New York:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/amazon-hq2-decision-amazon-splits-hq2-prize-between-crystal-city-and-new-york/2018/11/12/316d2a32-e2c9-11e8-8f5f-a55347f48762_story.html - Amazon HQ favorites: Similar basics but different vibes:
https://www.apnews.com/1f35747f533c4b668927199a9752488d - Amazon considers New York, Virginia Amid Reports of HQ split:
https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2018/11/05/us/ap-us-amazon-hq.html - Press release: Amazon Selects New York City and Northern Virginia for New Headquarters
https://press.aboutamazon.com/news-releases/news-release-details/amazon-selects-new-york-city-and-northern-virginia-new - Amazon’s HQ2 proposal:
https://www.amazon.com/b?ie= UTF8&node=17044620011&tag= insider-safetynet-20 - Amazon ‘HQ2’ will boost house prices in chosen cities, but not like in Seattle:
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-the-amazon-effect-on-house-prices-may-be-muted-in-the-chosen-hq2-cities-2018-11-07
But the impact on housing prices might be less severe in the New York and Washington, D.C., areas than it would have been elsewhere. One study from real-estate website Apartment List predicted that rents would increase by less than 0.5% in those two cities were they to win the bidding war for Amazon HQ2. And that was before it was first reported the prize was to be split in half.
It’s all relative, of course. Home values in New York City have already soared 42.5% over the past five years, while prices in Arlington County, Va., have risen 15.5%. Home values in Seattle increased 73% over that time span. - Amazon’s treasure trove of data:
https://www.axios.com/amazon-hq2-search-cities-incentives-data-719ce80c-a2ad-4a7e-88b1-a4c349b11f14.html