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Amazon In 'Advanced Talks' To Open Headquarters In Washington DC Area (theguardian.com) 101

Posted by BeauHD from the second-home dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Amazon is in "advanced talks" to open its second headquarters in the Washington DC metropolitan area, the Washington Post, a paper owned by Amazon founder and chief executive Jeff Bezos, reported on Saturday. Amazon, which is headquartered in Seattle, is seriously considering an area known as Crystal City, a large residential and office complex in Arlington, Virginia, just south of Washington, the Post reported, citing unidentified sources. The Washington metropolitan area has long been considered a top contender. As well as owning the Post, Bezos has a home in the area. When the company announced a list of 20 top contenders in January, it included Washington and Montgomery county, Maryland, which is just north of the city. Crystal City is served by a mass transit system and major highways, both qualifications Amazon has said are required.
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Amazon In 'Advanced Talks' To Open Headquarters In Washington DC Area More

Amazon In 'Advanced Talks' To Open Headquarters In Washington DC Area

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  • Less money spent wooing lobbyists (Score:5, Funny)

    by RogueWarrior65 ( 678876 ) on Sunday November 04, 2018 @09:18AM (#57589526)

    Won't have to fly to them or fly them to you.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Total chaos will ensue when amazon starts sending stuff to the wrong Washington.

      There might be a logic to having it as many time zones apart as possible though.

    • Exactly- Bezos doesn't really want to settle for only running the world's biggest retail department store, he wants control of the government. So where better to put the Palace of Bezos than in a place where he can directly offer "campaign contributions" to the nation's leadership?

  • Just what DC needs a (Score:3)

    by oldgraybeard ( 2939809 ) on Sunday November 04, 2018 @09:27AM (#57589558)
    dedicated fulfillment center for the bureaucrats, the media and their politicians. Anything they want delivered to their door.

    Just my 2 cents ;)

  • It's a shame (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Bezos was once known as a libertarian. You remember those small government folks.

    Now he's become part of the big government problem. Just another hog feeding from the $4 trillion trough.

    • Now he's become part of the big government problem. Just another hog feeding from the $4 trillion trough.

      Spoken like someone who has absolutely no idea how staggeringly wasteful big government procurement has become. If only the government could get office suppies by Prime the taxpayers would save billions.

      • If only the government could get office suppies by Prime the taxpayers would save billions.

        Under the AbilityOne program established by the Javits-Wagner-O'Day act [wikipedia.org], the U.S. government prefers to buy office supplies made by blind people as a subsidy for their employment. Do Skilcraft [wikipedia.org] and other manufacturers employing blind people sell on Amazon?

    • Proving once again that the only real difference between a libertarian and a crony capitalist is a bank account large enough to buy a politician.

  • closer to the swamp (Score:5, Insightful)

    by boguslinks ( 1117203 ) on Sunday November 04, 2018 @09:29AM (#57589574)

    This can't possibly be for quality of life of the employees, given some of the other finalists. Nor is it likely for the largest subsidies, given how places like Newark were ready to throw everything plus the kitchen sink at them.

    Perhaps it's for an employee base more amenable to CIA/NSA work

    • Newark?!? Yeah right. That stretch of I-95 is literally like the tanker truck chase at the end of The Road Warrior. What was in their package, that NOS-powered forklift the Humungus was driving? Bezos would officially be titled the "Ayatollah of Rock and Rolla?"

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by EryximachusBK ( 5591897 )
      Arlington has among the best quality of life ratings in the country. But, what ultimately matters here is the Potomac Yards, which is owned by a REIT known as JBG Smith that Amazon is in advanced talks to purchase. Their stock price has soared this week. There is nowhere else in the country where you have the quality of life of Arlington, heavy rail mass transit, and 100 acres of land to be developed. Crystal City is also a blank slate these days - DoD contractors and offices have moved elsewhere so it g

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by rfengr ( 910026 )
        Quality of life? Ha, Ha! I got the hell out of there 20+ years ago. Northern VA is a cess pool of illegal 3rd world immigration.

  • This was always the plan (Score:5, Interesting)

    by PeeAitchPee ( 712652 ) on Sunday November 04, 2018 @09:33AM (#57589588)
    To continue to be as disruptive as they are, Amazon must wield significant political influence for the foreeable future. This requires close proximity to DC and its lobbyists and owned Congress critters. MD offers a high-tax, anti-business environment (despite the best efforts of its moderate governor over the past four years), and DC itself is a slowly-gentrifying pit with high crime rates and little room for expansion or infrastructure. That leaves Northern Virginia, and Crystal City / Arlington is indeed perfect: it's an under-utilized area immediately across the river from downtown DC, it's directly served by the Metro (yes, I know the DC Metro has its flaws), it has its own major airport (Reagan), and taxes are lower than Maryland or DC proper (for now). The "competitive process" was likely just to gain leverage to see what concessions VA was ultimately willing to throw into the pot. I feel a bit bad for the VA taxpayers who are going to directly pay for a big part of this with higher taxes at least initially, and in perpetuity with even more insane traffic than they have now, but who knows? Maybe they'll actually see some of that massive economic impact of so many additional high-skilled jobs that Amazon has been preaching.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by DewDude ( 537374 )
      But NOVA can't handle it. They can barely handle the number of people now. If they're looking at Crystal City....that's going to cause havoc on Alexandria. The article says it's "served by a major highways"...no..it's not. It's pretty much "local" roads because the one highway through there is pretty much a 24/7 toll road.
      • If they were looking at it purely from a space / infrastructure standpoint, PG County across the river from Alexandria would be the best place. But MD isn't the best economic package and Crystal City is right across from downtown, so that's where they're going.
    • You should tell them that, what with the highest median income in the country [wikipedia.org]. They seem to be doing just fine.

      Meanwhile in Kansas [forbes.com]. I mean, when even Forbes calls you out on going too far into trickle down...

      I don't think anyone threw in the pot though. I think they smelled the shit-sandwich that would be tax breaks and subsidies in exchange for very, very few jobs. You need Scott Walker grad levels of corruption to get away with that. It's like the Olympics. It's a disaster all around unless you t
      • Dude, quit talking out of your ass. Some of us actually spend significant time in the areas we talk about instead of just re-posting random articles from the Net. And yeah, MD Republican Governor Larry Hogan is gonna double-digits mop the floor on Tuesday with progressive lackey Ben Jealous in a very DEEP blue state because he's the most popular governor there EVER (with good reason). Imagine that, real working people (even Democrats!) actually like moderates that won't tax them into poverty and who aren

    • slowly-gentrifying pit

      Say what? There is nothing slow about it, and it's pretty far from a pit.

  • Capitalism = Competition = Fair Play. @amazon [twitter.com] waves middle finger in face of capitalism w/HQ2 ruse. It was always DC Metro. An abuse of the commonwealth. #con [twitter.com] https://t.co/VC4hYoai81 [t.co]

    — Scott Galloway (@profgalloway) November 3, 2018 [twitter.com]

  • SCAMazon needs to be closer to the Pentagon and CIA HQ in order to cooperate more closely in destroying the privacy of Americans and people abroad (i.e. everyone in the world). On the plus side, maybe they'll first lease space in a building that will collapse in a stiff breeze and Bezos will be visiting that day :D
  • who will be paying for this in the form of higher taxes to cover all the subsidies. It's like the Olympics, no sane person wants it in their city.

    OTOH the other cities seem to have told Amazon to take a flying leap when they came calling ala Foxconn asking to be paid by the local government for a few hundred jobs, maybe DC isn't gonna roll out the money carpet.

    • Re:My heart goes out to the people of DC (Score:5, Interesting)

      by b0s0z0ku ( 752509 ) on Sunday November 04, 2018 @10:14AM (#57589714)
      Crystal Meth City is actually in Virginia, not DC proper. Virginia loves corepirate welfare even if it means cutting services to actual humans living in the state. So there's that.
    • Not sure what you are talking about. The cities are falling over themselves to get Amazon. Also, this isn't in DC, but a close suburb in Virginia. DC had its own bid.
    • The people of DC won't be directly paying for this, so they will derive benefit from it just like the people of MD. It's Virginia taxpayers who will get stuck with the bill.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Rastl ( 955935 )

      who will be paying for this in the form of higher taxes to cover all the subsidies. It's like the Olympics, no sane person wants it in their city.

      OTOH the other cities seem to have told Amazon to take a flying leap when they came calling ala Foxconn asking to be paid by the local government for a few hundred jobs, maybe DC isn't gonna roll out the money carpet.

      As someone who lives in one of the 20 original cities I can breathe a large sigh of relief that we're out of the running. The only people who wanted it here were the politicians. No residents (including the tech community) wanted it and were quite vocal about their displeasure.

      And every time the winter Olympics come up those same politicians get all excited about putting our hat in the ring only to be roundly defeated by referendums. The residents here at least seem to have a solid grip on what's going to b

  • >"When the company announced a list of 20 top contenders in January, it included Washington and Montgomery county, Maryland, which is just north of the city."

    So when it is just south of Washington DC, it is "Washington DC", but when it is just north of Washington DC, it is "Maryland"? This is the third article/summary I have seen say the same thing, from different sources.

    And here it is in reverse, listing Virginia, but not listing Maryland:
    https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/1... [cnbc.com]

  • Since it seems to have as many 'heads'-quarters as such a beast.

  • >To Open Headquarters In Washington DC Area
    Much easier to buy legislation/legislators when the deals can be made verbally, up close and in person,

  • Isn't Crystal City already built-out? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Miamicanes ( 730264 ) on Sunday November 04, 2018 @12:13PM (#57590086)

    Does Crystal City (or at least, any part within sane walking distance of the Metro station) actually HAVE undeveloped land suitable for new development? The last time I was there, it already seemed to be pretty "built out".

    The only advantage Crystal City seems to have compared to the area between Tysons Corner & Dulles is service by two metro lines (esp. yellow) into DC that *aren't* both completely choked.

    The last time I visited Rosslyn, it was almost impossible to board the train at Rosslyn station, because every single outbound train from DC was packed to the point where you couldn't get on, and nobody actually GOT OFF at Rosslyn to make room for the horde at Rosslyn to board.

    Frankly, I have no idea how Rosslyn station can possibly deal with Silver Line traffic ON TOP OF Blue & Orange, because it was 100% saturated years ago just by Blue & Orange alone. I'm guessing that the Rosslyn chokepoint was a major factor against a site near the new Silver line and/or Dulles... Metro isn't really useful as a travel mode in or out of DC proper if you can't actually BOARD at a station due to inadequate capacity.

    I read somewhere that as a stopgap measure, they were exploring the idea of making Silver-line trains ~50% longer than the platforms... the idea being that middle cars would stop at every station, but cars at the front or rear would only stop at alternating stations (and lengthened platforms at suburban stations, which are mostly above-ground to begin with & fairly cheap to extend compared to mined-out stations underground).

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by bongey ( 974911 )

      It is a ruse, amazon was always going to end up in Washington DC. https://www.recode.net/2018/9/... [recode.net]

    • Huh? Crystal City is on the Blue / Yellow lines. It can get crowded but it's nowhere near like, for example, the Red line at peak hours.
    • Crystal city is built out, but the occupancy rates are in the toilet. Vornado would gleefully tear down some of its 60's era office towers for new construction with higher paying tenants.

  • I'm disappointed that Miami isn't likely to get HQ2... but I'm still optimistic that we're going to eventually end up as a major Amazon business outpost anyway, if only due to our status as the de-facto business capital of Latin America and Jeff Bezos' own personal ties to the area.

    My personal theory is that Miami was never really a serious contender for HQ2, but Amazon used it as somewhat of a bait & switch operation to get Miami to pull out all the stops and offer its best deal, which Amazon can NOW t

    • Yeah, but Miami is in Florida.
    • As someone who spends a lot of time in Florida -- no way. Sure Florida is growing but the real power base is in the DC to NY corridor.

      • DC and NY are the real power base... but Florida is their playground, and where lots of their kids end up moving.

        And... we're not *totally* a backwater. Citrix has a major HQ presence in Fort Lauderdale. IBM had a major presence in Boca Raton, whose spun-off divisions mostly still exist under new names & owners. Ditto for the former data-processing division of Eastern Airlines, which got purchased by EDS & (afaik) still exists today as a division of Verizon somewhere in Miami. Motorola still has a l

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