Amazon Selects New York, Virginia For HQ2

Amazon has chosen New York City and Northern Virginia to split its second headquarters, as the e-commerce giant spreads from its Seattle heartland.

The second North American base, known as HQ2, will be an equal to its existing campus in Seattle (HQ1).

Amazon’s decision to create a second headquarters outside its Seattle home, triggered a bidding war between various US states. Indeed, Washington DC was widely tipped as leading the race for the location of Amazon’s HQ2, but will now have to share the honour with New York.

HQ2 locations

Amazon’s plan to invest $5 billion in construction and operation, including the creation of 50,000 new jobs, attracted huge interest from various US states who offered all types of tax incentives to lure the firm to their state.

Indeed, Amazon expects HQ2 to stimulate the local economy to the tune of tens of billions of dollars.

Both locations will receive a $2.5 billion investment from Amazon, and each will have more than 25,000 workers over time.

Amazon made the announcement in a blog posting. “The new locations will join Seattle as the company’s three headquarters in North America,” it said.

In addition, Amazon announced that it had selected Nashville for a new Center of Excellence for its Operations business, in a move that will create more than 5,000 jobs.

The new Washington, D.C. metro headquarters in Arlington will be located in National Landing, and the New York City headquarters will be located in the Long Island City neighbourhood in Queens.

New jobs

Amazon said that hiring at both the new headquarters will begin in 2019.

“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.”

Amazon said that the reason it had decided to split its second headquarters across two locations was so that it “can recruit more top talent by being in two locations.”

It admitted that economic incentives were one factor in its decision, but Amazon said that attracting top talent was the leading driver.

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