Amazon has chosen Northern Virginia and New York City as hosts for its second headquarters dubbed “HQ2”, a year after running a competition that attracted interest from numerous states and hundreds of cities.
The new New York City headquarters will be located in the Long Island City neighborhood, while the Washington, D.C. metro headquarters in Arlington will be located in National Landing, in Queens.
Amazon will invest a total of $2.5bn and employ more than 25,000 people in each city. Jobs in both locations will have an average annual pay of $150,000 and hiring is expected to start in 2019, according to a press release issued by the company.
The online retail giant has also chosen Nashville as its new Center of Excellence for its Operations business, which is expected to employ more than 5,000 people. Based on employment creation, Amazon will receive incentives of approximately $573 million in Arlington, and incentives of $1.5 billion for Long Island City. The new offices will generate over $14bn in extra tax revenue for Tennessee, Virginia, and New York in the next two decades, the company said.
“We are excited to build new headquarters in New York City and Northern Virginia,” said Jeff Bezos, founder, and CEO of Amazon. “These two locations will allow us to attract world-class talent that will help us to continue inventing for customers for years to come. The team did a great job selecting these sites, and we look forward to becoming an even bigger part of these communities.”
Competing states and cities had offered tax-incentive packages and spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in a vicious attempt to win the retailer. For instance, New Jersey and Newark had proposed $7 billion in incentives, while New York Governor Andrew Cuomo had promised to change his name to Amazon Cuomo.
The choice of Arlington could hand the company greater political influence in nearby Washington, where it already has one of the biggest lobbying outlets in town. Bezos-owned Washington Post has been on the receiving end of President Donald Trump’s ire for writing critical articles about him.
Amazon.com Inc. Company Profile
Amazon.com, Inc. engages in the provision of online retail shopping services. It operates through the following segments: North America, International, and Amazon Web Services (AWS). The North America segment includes retail sales of consumer products and subscriptions through North America-focused websites such as www.amazon.com and www.amazon.ca.
The International segment offers retail sales of consumer products and subscriptions through internationally-focused websites. The Amazon Web Services segment involves in the global sales of compute, storage, database, and AWS service offerings for start-ups, enterprises, government agencies, and academic institutions. The company was founded by Jeffrey P. Bezos in July 1994 and is headquartered in Seattle, WA. – CNN Money
