In today’s buzz about the location of Amazon’s second headquarters, often referred to as HQ2: There has been an unusual spike in traffic — more than 6,000 views over the past week — for an obscure article in ARLNow, entitled “County Wins Top Environmental Award from U.S. Green Building Council.”
The vast majority of the traffic can be traced back to an internal Amazon page devoted to its HQ2 search, says ARLNow.
Of Amazon’s Top 20 candidates, three are located in the Washington metro area: one each Washington, D.C., Montgomery County, Md., and Loudoun-Fairfax in Virginia. Has the e-retail giant added Arlington to the mix?
Why wouldn’t Amazon lean toward Virginia? The state has a long track record of cooperation with the company on data centers and solar energy. At this very moment, Dominion Virginia Energy has included in its list of proposed grid-modernization projects the expensive burial of a high-voltage transmission line through the Haymarket area of Prince William County to serve an Amazon data center. Although the project would require State Corporation Commission funding, it has raised few eyebrows to date. Amazon jolly well ought to love the Old Dominion.
