Amazon Selects New York City, Northern Virginia for $5B Second Headquarters, Nashville for Operations Hub

by John Nelson

SEATTLE — Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) has officially selected New York City and Arlington, Va., as the homes for its second headquarters, confirming reports last week of the e-commerce giant’s decision to split HQ2. Amazon will invest $5 billion and create more than 50,000 jobs across the two new headquarters locations, with more than 25,000 employees in each new headquarters.

Both campuses will feature 4 million square feet of new office space, which is expandable up to 8 million square feet at each location. New York City and Arlington will join Seattle as the company’s three headquarters in North America.

“These two locations will allow us to attract world-class talent that will help us to continue inventing for customers for years to come,” says Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon. “The team did a great job selecting these sites, and we look forward to becoming an even bigger part of these communities.”

The New York location will be in Queens’ Long Island City neighborhood. The Arlington office will be in River Landing, a newly branded neighborhood encompassing parts of Pentagon City and Crystal City in Arlington and Potomac Yard in nearby Alexandria.

Amazon estimates the incremental tax revenue to exceed $10 billion for the New York location and $3.2 billion for the Arlington location over the next 20 years as a direct result of the job creation and investment from Amazon.

The New York campus will feature dedicated green space, and Amazon plans to donate land for a tech startup incubator for use by artists and industrial companies, as well as a new primary or intermediary public school.

“This is a giant step on our path to building an economy in New York City that leaves no one behind,” says New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio.

Amazon plans to invest $195 million in infrastructure for the Northern Virginia campus, including improvements to the Crystal City and the Potomac Yards Metro stations; a pedestrian bridge connecting National Landing and Reagan National Airport; and work to improve safety, accessibility and the pedestrian experience crossing Route 1 over the next 10 years.

“This is a big win for Virginia — I’m proud Amazon recognizes the tremendous assets the Commonwealth has to offer and plans to deepen its roots here,” says Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam.

New Nashville Operations Hub
Amazon has also announced that it has selected downtown Nashville as the site for the company’s new Center of Excellence for its Operations business, which is responsible for the company’s customer fulfillment, transportation, supply chain and other similar functions.

Situated along the Cumberland River, the $230 million operations hub will create more than 5,000 jobs housed in 1 million square feet of office space. Amazon expects the new campus will generate an estimated incremental tax revenue of more than $1 billion over the next 10 years as a result of the company’s investment and job creation.

“We want to thank Amazon for its continued investment in the state of Tennessee and are excited about the additional 5,000 corporate jobs they will be creating in Nashville,” says Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam. “Tennessee continues to attract a wide variety of global companies that provide high-paying, quality jobs for our residents.”

Founded by Bezos in 1994, Amazon now employs more than 610,000 people worldwide. The company’s stock price closed on Monday, Nov. 12 at $1,650.19 per share, up from $1,129.17 a year ago.

— John Nelson

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