Bacon's Rebellion

Democracy Thrives in Sunlight

Is Amazon Leaning towards Washington?

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by

James A. Bacon
in

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.

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12 responses to “Is Amazon Leaning towards Washington?”

  1. djrippert Avatar
    djrippert

    Probably a defective script written by one of their interns. Lol. The only place in Virginia remotely like Amazon’s HQ1 in downtown Seattle is the Arlington / Alexandria area. The problem is that Arlington and Alexandria combined only constitute 41 sq mi. Seattle isn’t a huge city but “checks in” at more than twice the combined area of Arlington and Alexandria. By way of comparison, about 26,000 people work at the Pentagon. So, we need 2 Pentagons to house the 50,000 people working at HQ2. For what it’s worth the Pentagon takes up 583 acres. So, the new HQ2, assuming it will be a contiguous campus and at the same worker density (including parking) as the Pentagon would need abut 1,000 acres. Not sure where you’d find that in Arlington / Alexandria.

    Maybe Alexandria could annex Arlington and some of the less dense areas south of Alexandria along Rt 1 and form a true city with some space to grow. Oh wait! That would require a competent state legislature. Never mind.

  2. LarrytheG Avatar
    LarrytheG

    Just to keep things on the up and up… ” Report: Seattle one of the worst U.S. cities for traffic congestion, tied with NYC”….

    also.. in terms of square miles Seattle is more like Hampton in terms of bodies of water that might be included in the square miles…

    It would seem to be that Amazon might be looking for that sweet spot between a already heavily densified urban area and one that is growing towards that… and perhaps Washington is the ticket.

    1. djrippert Avatar
      djrippert

      The water is measured separately from the land. The 84 sq mi is only the land.

  3. TooManyTaxes Avatar
    TooManyTaxes

    The general area around Dulles Airport would still be the best location, IMO. Close to a major airport with excess capacity. Near the Silver Line with excess capacity. And keep in mind that the Comp Plan for Tysons requires expansion of the Orange Line to at least Centreville and one additional rail line or major extension. A number of people with knowledge think that this will be a rail line on or near Route 28, which would connect with the expanded Orange Line and the expanded Silver Line (to Loudoun County). Such a connection would make both the Orange and Silver Lines less like spur lines and, with Amazon, better utilized.

    The Tysons landowners, whose noses are out of joint for not being considered for Amazon, would benefit because they would get the additional transit required by the Comp Plan (Table 7) for further growth and, as such, would likely be supportive. This would also help Loudoun concentrate growth in the eastern part of the county, protecting the more rural western half.

    I also suspect that, despite the push from Arlington and Alexandria for Amazon, the residents are less likely to truly want massive growth because of the impacts on neighborhoods, Reagan National, and traffic. Reagan National simply doesn’t have the capacity to meet an Amazon’s needs.

    Moreover, there are many factors that likely make expansion of the Purple Line, which is light rail, to Tysons totally impractical. Hogan’s highway/toll lanes/transit expansion plan will bring express bus service between Tysons and Bethesda.

    My two cents.

    1. djrippert Avatar
      djrippert

      The City of Seattle, where Amazon just built a new HQ1, is very densely populated … about 8,300 per sq mi. As Jim Bacon consistently points out … millennial folks like living in real cities. And Amazon’s biggest challenge for HQ2 is talent. Right now, the easiest place to get and retain “next gen” talent in the DC area is in DC. There are some areas outside of DC proper that might work – Alexandria/Arlington, Reston, Bethesda. However, a fortress-like campus stuck in some corner of Fairfax / Loudoun or Montgomery County just won’t be appealing to Amazon. Or, more accurately, it won’t be appealing to the kind of people Amazon needs to attract.

      1. TooManyTaxes Avatar
        TooManyTaxes

        I don’t think the current residents of Arlington and/or Alexandria would readily accept a campus that could hold one or two Pentagons even if they are largely vertical. If you get by the River, there are issues with airplane traffic from Reagan National for very tall buildings. And people will not like one, two or three giant towers. If you spread out the campus, you will have a challenge to find enough land in those two localities.

  4. LarrytheG Avatar
    LarrytheG

    re: ” millennials” : headline: ” Seattle to spend $100 million on affordable housing, including 9 new apartment buildings”

    here’s another: ” The Millennials Are Leaving San Francisco… And We Need to Stop Them Before It’s Too Late”

    ” These Are the 13 Cities Where Millennials Can’t Afford a Home
    Soaring home prices and stagnant wages combine to make home-buying in some cities a pipe dream for young adults

    Millennials have been priced out of some of the biggest U.S. cities, with residential real estate prices rising even as wage growth remains elusive.

    Bloomberg used data from the U.S. Census Bureau, Zillow Group Inc. and Bankrate.com to quantify how much more money millennials would need to earn each year to afford a home in the largest U.S. cities.

    https://assets.bwbx.io/images/users/iqjWHBFdfxIU/iNrRQo_ZuxdY/v1/1000x-1.jpg

    1. djrippert Avatar
      djrippert

      Oh Larry! The next generation start up I ran had offices in SanFrancisco, Cambridge, MA, London and Tokyo. None of my millennial employees got priced out of any of those areas. You know why? Because they were experienced devops engineers and I had to pay them small fortunes. My problem wasn’t seeing them run for jobs in the suburbs but finding enough of them. Oh yeah … finding enough who were capable software engineers and not certifiably insane. You’d be amazed at the stories I could tell you.

      I strongly suspect the millennial people being forced out of the cities in the article you reference are baristas, waitresses, etc not graphic artists and software engineers.

      However, if I had to do it again ….

      Tim and Sara are a married couple who retired from one of the tech firms where I once worked. They retired young and had young children in the house. They lived in a nice place off the beaten path in North East Florida (somewhat near St Augustine). They figured they could find enough smart young recent college graduates who would pass on the big bucks of New York or California to live and work on the beach in Palm Cove Florida. I went down there for the opening (in 2013) when Florida’s governor staged a meet and greet to congratulate them for opening a technology company in Palm Cove (and to get some media attention for his re-election campaign of course). That was five years ago. Now, they have such a big operation they had to expand beyond Florida. Where did they go? Louisville and Steamboat Springs, Co. Their motto used to be, “work with your toes in the sand and your head in the cloud”. I guess they had to drop that when they went to Kentucky and Colorado.

      I count 85 people on their web site “group shot”. Not bad work for just over four years ….

      https://coastalcloud.us/about-coastal-cloud/

  5. LarrytheG Avatar
    LarrytheG

    Thanks for the personal story! And I “get” it!!

    but aren’t you essentially arguing the opposite of the dense city is what attracts millennials idea?

    I don’t know.. truly. on one hand I hear that the internet allows quality people to live anywhere and contribute their work products via the internet.. and on the other hand I hear that ..no.. they have to be physically together as a “team”.

    I DO KNOW that Amazon in Seattle is a big congestion problem… and the city is working to expand transit – at no small cost.

    And I’ll agree with TMT – I think what would be attractive to Amazon is NOT Arlington – but Dulles… where their workers could commute 30-50 more miles to bucolic nirvana… OR go into the “burg” for the times they wanted to. I’m not sure I see millennials lusting after 34th floor apartments in downtown Arlington.

  6. Steve Haner Avatar
    Steve Haner

    “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. ”

    I’m tired of ignorance and deception in throw away lines. The language in the bill you refer to is a diktat, an absolute and unquestioned mandate that the SCC will approve the underground line (250 percent the cost of an overhead line) and charge the cost 100 percent to the entire universe of Dominion customers. It overrides local zoning and authorizes right of way acquisition. It has raised plenty of eyebrows and freshman delegate Danica Roem gave a strong floor speech against it during debate on the bill a week ago. The PW county delegation is split on it. You don’t know what the (blank) you are talking about Jim and you should stop pretending you do unless and until you want to read the actual bill or talk to somebody on the front line.

    With this being approved, you can expect other efforts to get the Assembly to mandate very expensive underground transmission lines to multiply in future sessions.

    But you are right, Amazon is probably very impressed with how this General Assembly can be brought to heel by a powerful corporate entity, and if they come Dominion will no longer be the biggest dog on the porch.

  7. TBill Avatar
    TBill

    Arlington?
    Ka-Ching$$ (that’s the sound of the I-66/I-395 HOT lanes toll machines).

  8. LarrytheG Avatar
    LarrytheG

    re: HOT lanes in Washington DC area…

    https://www.wsdot.wa.gov/sites/default/files/2017/01/12/I-405ETLmap_250px.png

    perfect fit!

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