Cities Race for Amazon's second "head quarters"

[mcsluggo]

 

 

i can proudly say that MY uncle always had much better teeth than that.... until he got focused on licking Jeff Bezos butt.  

 

but he's gonna bring home those jobs!

[PleaseBlitz]

It looks like NoVa won. 

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/amazon-in-advanced-talks-about-putting-hq2-in-northern-virginia-those-close-to-process-say/2018/11/02/9be831d6-d7c0-11e8-aeb7-ddcad4a0a54e_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.8d37482d8409

 

 

[Spaceman Spiff]

Keep it far away from Loudoun, Fauquier and Frederick counties.  Moved out here for cheap living, don't need Amazon ****ing it up.

 

Glad to see they'd target Crystal City.

[Springfield]

It’s gonna be Crystal City

[PokerPacker]

Will be curious to see how hiring goes.  If they need to grab a bunch of engineers quickly to fill out their ranks, they may offer some lucrative packages.

[Springfield]

Wonder if they need any automotive service managers...

[PokerPacker]

4 hours ago, Springfield said:

Wonder if they need any automotive service managers...

Well last I'd heard (which was a couple years ago at this point, I guess), they were partnering with Ford.

[Renegade7]

6 hours ago, PleaseBlitz said:

It looks like NoVa won. 

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/amazon-in-advanced-talks-about-putting-hq2-in-northern-virginia-those-close-to-process-say/2018/11/02/9be831d6-d7c0-11e8-aeb7-ddcad4a0a54e_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.8d37482d8409

 

 

 

Used to say NOVA was like a different state then rest of Virginia.  Now its turning into a different country these days.  Saw this coming, but man seeing it actually happen...

[JamesMadisonSkins]

Called this from day 1. CC specifically. 

On 1/18/2018 at 10:50 PM, JamesMadisonSkins said:

Plenty of land in Nova. JBG Smith has already said they’re offering up their Crystal City portfolio that they just got from their acquisition of Vornado who owned almost all of that area. All of Crystal City is primed for redevelopment. Lot of demos and rebuilds of old DoD buildings form the 1970s. 

 

Tysons with all the density to go up, though traffic is a nightmare. 

 

Potomac Yard in Alexandria is a massive redevelopment site just south of Crystal. 

 

#boom

[JamesMadisonSkins]

Seems to be close to official 

[Renegade7]

Heard we are going to split with Long Island, whatever that means.  Glad NOVA got it, but why Crystal City of all places?  All that research, they don't see that route 1 area around rush hour is like what the center of black hole looks like from a gravity perspective? 

 

I guess there is a metro station, imagine more data centers will pop up throughout the area.  It's got to be to solidify AWS hold on cloud solutions for DOD, heard they have data centers just for DOD now that are FIPS compliant out the ass.

[Springfield]

I heard that Crystal City has the office space available for people simply to move into.

[SkinInsite]

Done deal, hope all the begging was worth it.

 

 

[PiLfan]

I respect Virginia for trying hard to court after Amazon and all, but I think paving over Jefferson Davis Highway in solid gold and renaming it "Bezos Driveway" was a bit much.

[tshile]

Did they know it was going to be split?

 

 

[BenningRoadSkin]

 

 

Appalling, but typical. This is like a bad NFL stadium deal times ten.

[PleaseBlitz]

14 hours ago, Renegade7 said:

Heard we are going to split with Long Island, whatever that means.  Glad NOVA got it, but why Crystal City of all places?  All that research, they don't see that route 1 area around rush hour is like what the center of black hole looks like from a gravity perspective? 

 

I guess there is a metro station, imagine more data centers will pop up throughout the area.  It's got to be to solidify AWS hold on cloud solutions for DOD, heard they have data centers just for DOD now that are FIPS compliant out the ass.

 

6 hours ago, Springfield said:

I heard that Crystal City has the office space available for people simply to move into.

 

Nearly 1/4 of all office space in Crystal City is currently vacant, because the DoD made a concerted effort over the past decade to move its operations elsewhere.  

 

It has the advantage of already being Metro accessible, but traffic is going to be ****ed for awhile if they move in anytime soon.  Apart from the non-highway road infrastructure being lacking (as @Renegade7 correctly notes), the north-south highway that goes by Crystal City is 395, which (1) is currently undergoing expansion, but under construction, and (2) one of the main entry points from 385 to DC proper, the Memorial Bridge, is under construction and down to only 3 lanes (from its usual 6), which causes the giant cluster**** I like to call "My Morning Commute."  This won't be done until 2021.  

[Heisenberg]

FML this is the swift kick in the ass I need to pick up and move somewhere more affordable.

 

I was already barely hanging on during my endless mornings/evenings on 395 and this will just make it a million times worse.

[Renegade7]

34 minutes ago, BenningRoadSkin said:

 

 

Appalling, but typical. This is like a bad NFL stadium deal times ten.

 

Not cool considering the amount of AWS federal systems in VA.

[JamesMadisonSkins]

You guys ... I’m in EcDev ... not trying to defend NDAs but they’re in place because some of the information companies give to state and local EDOs involves strategic and sometimes very closely guarded company information. I’m sure the jurisdictions will release as much as they can but that’s why these FOIAs have to be vetted and black-lined. 

1 hour ago, Heisenberg said:

FML this is the swift kick in the ass I need to pick up and move somewhere more affordable.

 

I was already barely hanging on during my endless mornings/evenings on 395 and this will just make it a million times worse.

FYI don’t be too doom and gloom. BRAC took out about 25,000 jobs in CC/PC over the last 15 years. This bakcfills that and diversifies away from government. Yes traffic sucks but I can tell you the VA and local incentives are very deliberate and invest to alleviate the pain points. 

Edited November 13, 2018 by JamesMadisonSkins

[Heisenberg]

13 minutes ago, JamesMadisonSkins said:

You guys ... I’m in EcDev ... not trying to defend NDAs but they’re in place because some of the information companies give to state and local EDOs involves strategic and sometimes very closely guarded company information. I’m sure the jurisdictions will release as much as they can but that’s why these FOIAs have to be vetted and black-lined. 

FYI don’t be too doom and gloom. BRAC took out about 25,000 jobs in CC/PC over the last 15 years. This bakcfills that and diversifies away from government. Yes traffic sucks but I can tell you the VA and local incentives are very deliberate and invest to alleviate the pain points. 

 

Thanks for the info.  I hope you're right and that it doesn't make it too much worse, but the last 2 years it feels like traffic has gotten so much worse.

[twa]

 

[No Excuses]

Amazon was never going to Texas. 

 

I dont know why NYC bent over backwards this much. I’m assuming Amazon wanted both HQ2 to be in close proximity. NoVA was an easy choice because Amazon is pretty much going to be the defacto cloud service for the federal government moving forward, especially after Google basically shut the door on working with DoD.

Edited November 15, 2018 by No Excuses

[Llevron]

If feel like VA made a pretty decent deal if you look at everything that comes with it. But NYC...I don't understand. Why do they need to make that city more crowded in the first place? How much does that really help them?

[LLandryistheshiz]

Virginia Tech is opening a new Engineering Grad school in that area now, and they’ve partnered with Amazon to make it happen. 

 

I’ve heard Amazon thinks VT is in line to be next MIT; think very highly of the talent there. Makes sense for them to build a direct pipeline