The Alexandria area is now home to Amazon’s only second headquarters (HQ2) site.
In late 2018, Amazon announced it was building two campuses for its second headquarters – one in Long Island City in Queens, New York, and one in the new “National Landing” area along the border of Alexandria and Arlington. The two areas would split 50,000 employees.
Thursday, Amazon announced it would not build a headquarters campus in New York City due to local opposition to the project and its related tax incentives.
Amazon officials said the company would not reopen the search for a second location for the New York half of HQ2.
According to their full statement, "We will proceed as planned in Northern Virginia and Nashville, and we will continue to hire and grow across our 17 corporate offices and tech hubs in the U.S. and Canada." (Amazon is building a comparatively small "operations hub" in downtown Nashville, which was announced along with the HQ2 plans.)
Amazon is already hiring in Northern Virginia, with more than 70 positions open in a variety of fields. Locally, economic activity has already increased with real estate investors swooping in on available homes in northeastern Alexandria and southeastern Arlington. However, the announcement does not necessarily mean Amazon will increase the number of jobs ultimately coming to Northern Virginia.
Amazon’s HQ2 will be in a new area called National Landing, a newly branded neighborhood that includes various sections of Potomac Yard in Alexandria and Crystal City and Pentagon City in Arlington.
Northern Virginia residents have repeatedly expressed concern about Amazon’s arrival into an already-tight and expensive Northern Virginia housing market. (Related: 2019 Alexandria Real Estate Market Off to a Quick Start.)
As part of the Amazon announcement, Alexandria and Arlington officials noted there are plans for investments to increase affordable housing in the area.
As part of the Amazon deal, Alexandria will welcome a new Alexandria campus of Virginia Tech. The university will develop its “Innovation Campus” to help focus on educating people for careers in high-tech fields.
