An HQ2 hopeful down I-95 hopes

Tom Paine


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Speculation is encircling the DC area, as it has for awhile, building towards a perhaps premature conclusion that the Capitol region - most likely Northern Virginia - will be Amazon's choice for HQ2.

Jeff Bezos and Amazon's entire board is in town today. And the clincher for some - Amazon this week joined the DC Chamber of Commerce.

Northern Virginia has been Amazon's largest computing region since the company's beginnigs. A Maryland-based real estate firm has just purchased a big block of land near the Fairfax County / Loudon County border for Amazon, with the expressed aim of building more Amazon data centers. Amazon was already planning to build a campus-like facility in Northern Virginia in addition to data centers.

But some say Amazon is looking at Arlington's Crystal City, a high rise development that has never really taken off, as the site for HQ2. Crystal City is just a hop and a skip across the Potomac from DC.

The streets of Crystal City

Bezos is speaking at The Economic Club of Washington Thursday evening. Other talks are planned for next week at the Air Force Association conference in National Harbor and during a visit to the Bezos-owned Washington Post.

Amazon said Bezos is not planning to make any HQ2 announcements during this trip.


Jeff and MacKenzie Bezos create $2 billion fund to fight homelessness (CNN)

In his DC speech, he expanded upon the morning's release:

Amazon's Bezos Will Hire a Team to Run Nonprofit Preschools
(Bloomberg)

It has been months. Here's what Jeff Bezos finally had to say about HQ2. . (Washington Business Journal)