Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Amazon HQ2: Advanced talks about second headquarters in Northern Virginia

washingtonpost.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 412 posts

Re: Amazon HQ2: Advanced talks about second headquarters in Northern Virginia

#81

Post by empath75 »

smacktoward wrote: post #22
sj4nz wrote: post #14

I have heard that the HQ2 is supposed to be a kind of "domed city." If it is Crystal City, Amazon HQ2 has started a infrastructure formation using a subscription with a DCaaS.

If “domed city” is the atmosphere they’re looking for, Crystal City is definitely the right choice — the existing buildings there are all connected together by a warren of underground tunnels, which includes an underground shopping mall. Combine that with the Brutalist ‘60s architecture and you get a neighborhood straight out of a bad sci-fi movie.

My dad worked at the Safeway there for years and people go shopping in pj’s there all the time.

Re: Amazon HQ2: Advanced talks about second headquarters in Northern Virginia

#83

Post by nathankunicki »

This is no surprise, it was always going to be Virginia, or somewhere else in the east coast tech corridor. The whole "city competition" has been a grand scheme by Amazon to get cities (mostly those in the aforementioned area) to offer incentives to move there. No other states were ever in the running.

Re: Amazon HQ2: Advanced talks about second headquarters in Northern Virginia

#84

Post by ghaff »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #17
headShrinker wrote: post #2

Just a stones throw away from Washington DC, imagine that. I’m sure it’s no coincidence that Amazon is in talks to do billions of dollars worth of work with the DOD and that the location choice of the second headquarters might have a lot to do with that.

Crystal City really has so much going for it: 1. As you point out, right next to Pentagon and federal government. 2. Good transportation: right on the Metro and literally across the street from National Airport. 3. If you're going to have 2 headquarters, having them be on opposite coasts makes sense. 4. And I think another one that is pretty unique to Crystal City is that Amazon and their employees definitely want to…

> However, most of the other cities on the list were either extremely crowded downtown, available sites were actually more out in the 'burbs, or the cities were far down in what a lot of people would consider "2nd tier" (or 3rd tier) cities.

Yeah, in Boston for example (where Amazon is actually doing some fairly heavy building and hiring in the Seaport anyway), the proposed HQ2 site was Suffolk Downs. That's not out in the burbs exactly but it is adjacent to old working class towns a little ways north. It's not what your typical techie would consider being in Boston.

I think Raleigh was somewhere out in industrial parks a decent way outside the city with no transit.

Etc.

We'll see if this story pans out but the DC area always had to seen as a leading contender. Yes, it's probably a bit pricey but one wonders how much latitude Amazon would have had anyway to pick a cheap location and provide much lower compensation than HQ1 to reflect that.

Even if the area doesn't check all the boxes, it checks a lot of them--including the fact that there's a ton of local tech talent and DC is, if not everyone's idea of a dream location to live and work, is at least considered tolerable by many.

Re: Amazon HQ2: Advanced talks about second headquarters in Northern Virginia

#85

Post by thucydides »

jaggederest wrote: post #6

I find the logic in the article pretty funny. > [T]he best way to make it is you collect as much data as you can, you immerse yourself in that data, but then [throw all that data away and decide based on personal whim]

If that's the process Bezos generally uses to make decisions, it seems to have worked fairly well for him.

Re: Amazon HQ2: Advanced talks about second headquarters in Northern Virginia

#86

Post by snowwrestler »

Animats wrote: post #64
snowwrestler wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another major advantage of Crystal City is that it is full of empty real estate. It was built up to house major federal agencies and their contractors, but all the agencies have moved out, and so have most of the contractors. The Patent and Trademark Office had 5 huge buildings; they moved to Alexandria. The Dept of Defense is moving a lot of its employees to Fort Belvoir, and the contractors are following. It's real…

I knew the USPTO had moved out. Those buildings are half a century old. Does Amazon plan to tear down and rebuild?

I wish I knew what Amazon was going to do!

I do believe they have said they want some folks working out of HQ2 in 2019, so that means using existing buildings, at least at first.

The USPTO buildings have a lot going for them: pretty close to Metro, dedicated parking garages, and a great view out over the airport. I had occasion to work in one of them in 2011 and it was in fine shape.

But even if Amazon does choose Crystal City, it doesn't necessarily mean they'll go after those USPTO buildings specifically. There are plenty of empty floors and buildings in CC to choose from.

Re: Amazon HQ2: Advanced talks about second headquarters in Northern Virginia

#87

Post by opportune »

jayess wrote: post #21
hak8or wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would they want their hq out in the boonies? And amazon (and many other tech companies) adjust their salary to cost of life in the area. The closer they are to a big city, the better, because they can attract more talent from the people already living close by.

As though it's a binary choice. Washington DC metro, or the boonies.

Yeah, there are a lot of medium sized midwestern and southern cities that would have had the best of all worlds except 1) presumably a lot of software developers amazon wants to hire don’t want to live in these places and 2) related to 1, there aren’t a lot of software developers already there.

I wish they had considered more cities like Cincinnati, Nashville, or Cleveland. Those are actually fine places and they have low COL (although Nashville’s is getting up there). Plenty of other cities in the US also fit that profile. Even though I’ve heard bad things about working for Amazon and wouldn’t work for them in Seattle or DC, I would seriously consider taking an Amazon SDE salary somewhere that salary could go very far

Re: Amazon HQ2: Advanced talks about second headquarters in Northern Virginia

#88

Post by moron4hire »

edraferi wrote: post #63
moron4hire wrote: post #12

Noooooooooooo, this is going to completely destroy an already broken transit system.

Growth is coming to the region, regardless of what Amazon does. HQ2 is just an accelerant. Embrace growth or resign your community to irrelevance.

I highly doubt the bedroom of the capital of the country is ever going to be irrelevant.

Let's go ask Seattlites what they think about Amazon.

Re: Amazon HQ2: Advanced talks about second headquarters in Northern Virginia

#89

Post by beamatronic »

tomohawk wrote: post #23

Seems like an admission that they have nothing new to do so they are seeking growth through federal contracts. Northern VA is the poster child of what happens when you have tons of growth over decades, but absolutely no planning, or worse, lots of nimby preventing infrastructure.

Reston and Ashburn are two fully planned communities. A lot of thought went into Reston particularly. Almost every home is near a walking trail, a pool, and a small shopping center.

Re: Amazon HQ2: Advanced talks about second headquarters in Northern Virginia

#90

Post by opportune »

jseliger wrote: post #74
dlbucci wrote: post #73

As a Pittsburgher living in Seattle for the past few years, hearing this gives me hope. I know NIMBY isn't the best philosophy, but I make an exception for Amazon, who I think has done a number on Seattle and its culture.

I think you mean that "excessive parking and single-family zoning requirements" have done a number on Seattle: https://oldurbanist.blogspot.com/2015/12/single-family-zonin... . There are technologies that exist that allow more than a handful of people to live on a given unit of land.

yeah it just doesn’t make sense to blame economic growth on Seattle’s problems when most of the issues boil down to: things are crowded and rent is high

Some people think that Chinese investment in real estate is also to blame but I’ve never seen any data that actually suggests that. Still, Seattle won’t pass rules to prevent speculation on property because at the end of the day, voters just want their property values to keep going up more than they want to live in a livable city for everyone

Post reply on HN