Amazon has officially revealed Long Island City, in New York, and Arlington, Virginia, as the locations for its new headquarters, bringing an end to a year-long contest to host the retail giant.
The company had initially been expected to choose just one site for a second headquarters, but in recent weeks it had appeared to be leaning more towards two, reportedly after having grown frustrated at the fact there wasn’t a suitable single candidate.
The two headquarters, based in New York City and Arlington, will house 25,000 workers each, and will receive a portion of the $5bn (£3.9bn) funding. Amazon currently has just one headquarters, in Seattle.
Amazon also said it will create more than 5,000 jobs in Nashville, Tennessee, at a new operations center.
Chief executive Jeff Bezos said: “We are excited to build new headquarters in New York City and Northern Virginia.
“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.”
Arlington had emerged as an early front-runner in the contest back in February, when a local news website in the region revealed a two-month-old article about the county had received a huge amount of traffic from an internal web-page at Amazon.com.
And, earlier this month, one of the biggest real estate developers in Crystal City, Arlington, pulled some of its properties off the market in preparation for the move being announced.
The other location was less clear, though, and Amazon was thought to have been considering both New York City and Chicago as potential sites.
The process to find a location for a second headquarters has been shrouded in secrecy since it began in September 2017 when Amazon first asked for proposals. It promised it would bring $5bn in investment and 50,000 jobs over the next 20 years to the winning area.
Almost 300 cities put forward bids to host Amazon. They were banned from revealing what incentives they had offered the company, although many are thought to have offered tax breaks.
The search began following growing tensions between Amazon and Seattle. A number of political leaders have blamed the company for high property values, traffic and a growing homeless crisis.
Earlier this year, the city council approved a payroll tax on big employers to pay for affordable housing and programs to fight homelessness. The tax was then overturned after Amazon threatened to push growth elsewhere,
The sites in Long Island City, Queens, and in National Landing in Arlington, will be a boon for the New York and Washington D.C. metro areas and highlights Amazon’s willingness to target big talent pools with pricey payroll over smaller markets.
The cities now face the challenge of balancing the benefits of Amazon’s investment with the growing pains that can come with the rapid influx of wealth.
