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Amazon’s announcement that it chose Crystal City in southeast Arlington for half of its second headquarters (HQ2) came with a companion announcement from Alexandria and Arlington: Amazon will be located in “National Landing.”
National Landing is a newly branded neighborhood that includes portions of Potomac Yard in Alexandria and sections of Crystal City and Pentagon City in Arlington County.
A joint information release from Arlington County and the City of Alexandria provided more details on the area:
“Amazon will invest approximately $2.5 billion to establish a new headquarters in National Landing, which will create more than 25,000 high paying jobs and occupy 4 million square feet of energy-efficient office space with the opportunity to expand to 8 million square feet over the next 12 years. The National Landing site, one of the National Capital Region’s most accessible mixed-use communities, sits in the heart of an area recognized for having the most highly-educated workforce in the nation and is home to a growing number of companies and agencies contributing to the metro area’s reputation as a technology hub of the East Coast. National Landing, as the name suggests, is situated adjacent to Reagan National Airport and across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C.”
National Landing includes more than 150 acres, 12 million square feet of office space that already is in place (with more to come) and more than 13,000 households.
Many residents have expressed concern about Amazon’s arrival into an already-tight and expensive Northern Virginia housing market. As part of the Amazon announcement, Alexandria and Arlington officials noted there are plans for investments in increase affordable housing.
The release stated: “Amazon’s choice to locate in National Landing comes as the region is intensifying its efforts to increase housing capacity and making more investments in affordable housing. … As part of this project announcement, both communities will fund affordable housing, workforce housing and public infrastructure, bolstered by revenues generated from Amazon’s new presence in their communities. Combined, the communities project investment of at least $150 million over the next decade, resulting in the creation and preservation of 2,000 to 2,400 affordable and workforce units in and around the Crystal City, Pentagon City and Columbia Pike areas and throughout Alexandria.”
Officials say the region is well-equipped to handle the influx of people and jobs, with housing developments in the pipeline and transportation infrastructure coming (including the new Metro station at Potomac Yard). Read more about the regional solutions Alexandria and Arlington have in place here.
In addition to Amazon, a center piece of National Landing will be a new Alexandria campus of Virginia Tech. The university will develop an “Innovation Campus” to help focus on educating people for careers in high-tech fields. The $1 billion Innovation Campus will cover 1 million square feet and focus on graduate-level education.
Learn more about National Landing at www.alexandriava.gov/NationalLanding.
