5 ms·

I’d bet money on the two being Crystal City, VA and Denver. The DC suburb makes sense for an East Coast hub, and it’s smart to be near the capital for DoD cont

I’d bet money on the two being Crystal City, VA and Denver. The DC suburb makes sense for an East Coast hub, and it’s smart to be near the capital for DoD contracts. And Denver is a nice, growing tech city with an attractive lifestyle.

kevinconaway 8y ago
Crystal City is a nightmare from a commuting perspective and an awful place to live. Its more or less a ghost town since BRAC moved out a bunch of agencies and contractors a few years ago. This had the effect of hollowing out what little independent retail / dining there was there as most of it catered to the office lunch crowd. From a commuting perspective, its right across the river from DC which makes it very difficult to get to from a driving / bus perspective. Taking the metro is somewhat better but would require a transfer for many people.
- jandrese 8y ago
  On the other hand, having lots of available empty office space just ready to go sounds like a bonus. Retail will move back in once there are customers to serve.
  - blueatlas 8y ago
    And there is a large pool of young talent a couple of metro stops north in Arlington.
- taurath 8y ago
  > Its more or less a ghost town since BRAC moved out a bunch of agencies and contractors a few years ago. This had the effect of hollowing out what little independent retail / dining there was there as most of it catered to the office lunch crowd. That seems to match south lake union in Seattle, which used to be warehouses and car dealerships.
  - phinnaeus 8y ago
    True, but the location was always central rather than peripheral.
- cwal37 8y ago
  Crystal City is a nightmare from a commuting perspective only if you're dead set on driving, and even then it depends very much on where you're coming from. I've lived on the Yellow/Blue lines south of DCA, now I'm in west Arlington, and I've done plenty of commuting along that corridor by bus/train/bike/car (Mt. Vernon/4 mile run/ W &OD trails for biking/running as a commute is very effective). Also there's a relatively high concentration of metro stops as is for a section that's not urban/DC core, and Potomac Yard is finally coming in in a couple years as well. Plus a pretty high commercial vacancy and a bit of marginal land that can still be developed. I mean, the dream would be they come in there and somehow spur additional transit down Columbia Pike, but that's probably a bit too much to hope for. It's also already not easy at all to buy a home there (speaking as someone who bought a place in Arlington a few months ago), so it must not be too awful to live there.
adventured 8y ago
I'd place that bet on Northern Virginia as guaranteed and Chicago, Atlanta or Dallas as the other most plausible, with Toronto being a slight possibility since they're going with two. Colorado is nice, but it's nothing compared to the Texas population and economic boom. 28m people in Texas, versus 5m in Colorado. Texas is also building high-speed rail, which will end up linking all of their major cities, an immense bonus. Denver / Colorado also sit in the middle of a dead zone in terms of major populations, along with being slightly too far west from any major ports (Dallas or Austin get you close to the Gulf). Chicago is far larger than Denver to draw talent from (including more surrounding populations) and far larger to draw general labor for. All have relatively good real-estate prices (comparable to Denver), plenty of tech talent, and are large shipping hubs. All three also have slightly lower tech industry wages than Denver. Toronto's tech and non-tech wages are far lower than all of these. Toronto gets them out of the US, but still very nearby, as a talent immigration hedge (political insanity hedge). Dallas / Texas gets an interesting nod, because Bezos has deep ties to Texas. He's putting one of them in Northern Virginia because of WaPo, his second home there, and the DC politics. It might make sense that he'd favor Texas for similar self-beneficial reasons. Atlanta, Dallas and Chicago are more diverse versus Denver, which is likely an important consideration for a mega corporation like Amazon. Chicago and Dallas are dramatically more diverse. Toronto's extreme real-estate prices, double that of Atlanta and Chicago, is likely a big negative. I give Denver a zero shot at landing one of the HQ2 sites.
- monocasa 8y ago
  It won't be Atlanta. They didn't even hook up public transit to the new Braves stadium because it would, to quote the county commissioner, "attract a certain type of person". The MARTA there is known as Moving Africans Rapidly Through Atlanta by that crowd.
  - woofyman 8y ago
    That’s not Atlanta. That’s Cobb county.
    - monocasa 8y ago
cloudkj 8y ago
Having multiple "HQs" spread across three timezones would be interesting from an operations point of view, since Amazon uses the "follow the sun" model for on call on some teams.

kevinconaway 8y ago

Crystal City is a nightmare from a commuting perspective and an awful place to live. Its more or less a ghost town since BRAC moved out a bunch of agencies and contractors a few years ago. This had the effect of hollowing out what little independent retail / dining there was there as most of it catered to the office lunch crowd. From a commuting perspective, its right across the river from DC which makes it very difficult to get to from a driving / bus perspective. Taking the metro is somewhat better but would require a transfer for many people.

jandrese 8y ago
On the other hand, having lots of available empty office space just ready to go sounds like a bonus. Retail will move back in once there are customers to serve.
- blueatlas 8y ago
  And there is a large pool of young talent a couple of metro stops north in Arlington.
taurath 8y ago
> Its more or less a ghost town since BRAC moved out a bunch of agencies and contractors a few years ago. This had the effect of hollowing out what little independent retail / dining there was there as most of it catered to the office lunch crowd. That seems to match south lake union in Seattle, which used to be warehouses and car dealerships.
- phinnaeus 8y ago
  True, but the location was always central rather than peripheral.
cwal37 8y ago
Crystal City is a nightmare from a commuting perspective only if you're dead set on driving, and even then it depends very much on where you're coming from. I've lived on the Yellow/Blue lines south of DCA, now I'm in west Arlington, and I've done plenty of commuting along that corridor by bus/train/bike/car (Mt. Vernon/4 mile run/ W &OD trails for biking/running as a commute is very effective). Also there's a relatively high concentration of metro stops as is for a section that's not urban/DC core, and Potomac Yard is finally coming in in a couple years as well. Plus a pretty high commercial vacancy and a bit of marginal land that can still be developed. I mean, the dream would be they come in there and somehow spur additional transit down Columbia Pike, but that's probably a bit too much to hope for. It's also already not easy at all to buy a home there (speaking as someone who bought a place in Arlington a few months ago), so it must not be too awful to live there.

adventured 8y ago

I'd place that bet on Northern Virginia as guaranteed and Chicago, Atlanta or Dallas as the other most plausible, with Toronto being a slight possibility since they're going with two. Colorado is nice, but it's nothing compared to the Texas population and economic boom. 28m people in Texas, versus 5m in Colorado. Texas is also building high-speed rail, which will end up linking all of their major cities, an immense bonus. Denver / Colorado also sit in the middle of a dead zone in terms of major populations, along with being slightly too far west from any major ports (Dallas or Austin get you close to the Gulf). Chicago is far larger than Denver to draw talent from (including more surrounding populations) and far larger to draw general labor for. All have relatively good real-estate prices (comparable to Denver), plenty of tech talent, and are large shipping hubs. All three also have slightly lower tech industry wages than Denver. Toronto's tech and non-tech wages are far lower than all of these. Toronto gets them out of the US, but still very nearby, as a talent immigration hedge (political insanity hedge). Dallas / Texas gets an interesting nod, because Bezos has deep ties to Texas. He's putting one of them in Northern Virginia because of WaPo, his second home there, and the DC politics. It might make sense that he'd favor Texas for similar self-beneficial reasons. Atlanta, Dallas and Chicago are more diverse versus Denver, which is likely an important consideration for a mega corporation like Amazon. Chicago and Dallas are dramatically more diverse. Toronto's extreme real-estate prices, double that of Atlanta and Chicago, is likely a big negative. I give Denver a zero shot at landing one of the HQ2 sites.

monocasa 8y ago
It won't be Atlanta. They didn't even hook up public transit to the new Braves stadium because it would, to quote the county commissioner, "attract a certain type of person". The MARTA there is known as Moving Africans Rapidly Through Atlanta by that crowd.
- woofyman 8y ago
  That’s not Atlanta. That’s Cobb county.
  - monocasa 8y ago

cloudkj 8y ago

Having multiple "HQs" spread across three timezones would be interesting from an operations point of view, since Amazon uses the "follow the sun" model for on call on some teams.