North America has been in a state of flux for months. 238 cities presented themselves as attractive as possible, highlighted location advantages and put together tax packages worth billions. Now the winners of a competition that has probably never existed in this form have been determined. The US Internet company Amazon has chosen the two east coast cities of New York and Washington DC as the location for its two new headquarters. Amazon officially announced this on Tuesday.
The online retailer originally announced in September 2017 that it would look for a location for a second headquarters in North America next to the previous one in Seattle and invest five billion dollars there. 20 cities made it into the final selection. Last week, US media reported that this second headquarters would be split between two cities to avoid a number of foreseeable problems. Amazon is afraid that it will not find enough IT specialists at one location alone, and that a division would also reduce the negative effects of the settlement such as traffic chaos and rising rents.
For Washington always spoke that Amazon boss Jeff Bezos lives here, who is also the owner of the capital newspaper “Washington Post”. The new branch is to be built in the suburb of Crystal City in the neighboring state of Virginia, where there is plenty of office space available. In New York, Long Island City in the borough of Queens on the East River has been chosen. “With these two locations, we are attractive to world-class talent,” said Bezos, who founded his book distribution almost 25 years ago in Seattle (Washington state). Today more than 40,000 people work there in 33 buildings. The “HQ2” is to create 25,000 additional jobs each. For the winning cities, the bid is a huge success.
–
