Amazon in 'advanced talks' to put HQ2 in Northern Virginia: report
Amazon is reportedly in advanced talks with officials in Northern Virginia about the possibility of opening its second headquarters in Crystal City.
The talks come after a year-long search that left hundreds of cities around the country scrambling to pitch themselves to the e-commerce giant, according to The Washington Post.
The discussions include how quickly Amazon would move its employees there, which buildings it would occupy and how an announcement about the move would be made to the public, people close to the process told to the Post. It’s unclear whether Amazon is having similar discussions with other finalists.
Amazon declined to comment.
At a conference in New York on Thursday, CEO Jeff Bezos -- who said in October that Amazon will decide before the end of the year where HQ2 will be -- told attendees the decision would ultimately be based on his intuition.
“For a decision like that, as far as I know, the best way to make it is you collect as much data as you can, you immerse yourself in that data but then you make the decision with your heart,” Bezos said.
In January, Bezos narrowed down the search to 20 North American cities after receiving 238 proposals. Amazon previously said the new headquarters will bring more than $5 billion in construction investments and as many as 50,000 well-paying jobs, in addition to tens of billions of dollars in further investment, to the city it calls home.
Executives from Amazon revisited five cities over the course of the past couple of months, including New York City; Newark, N.J.; Chicago; and the Washington, D.C.-area according to The Wall Street Journal. Some cities like Raleigh, N.C. have reportedly not heard from the retail giant in months.
In hopes of wooing Amazon, a number of cities offered tax incentives to the trillion-dollar company. State and local officials in New Jersey proposed a combined $7 billion in tax incentives to lure Amazon to Newark and Chicago offered $2 billion in tax breaks (and hinted it was willing to go higher).
Few of the proposals from cities and states making offers have been made public, including Northern Virginia’s.
