so with the WSJ reporting almost for sure Long Island City and Crystal City as a split decision for Amazon’s expansion, what are your thoughts?
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HQ2-A/B
- Thread starter smallcoffee
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I think they didn't really think things through when they chose those locations. They certainly weren't thinking about their employees and what they'd have to go through. My guess is that the only considerations they took into account was the billions in tax breaks and incentives they were going to be getting. Both locations have terrible traffic, high cost of living, and housing issues, (with NoVA leading in those areas). In Northern VA the employees are going to have very long commutes, as they will have to live a long distance from Crystal City. There's just no affordable housing within 30 miles or better. Some of their other choices would have been much better for their employees, but I guess their powers that be didn't want to pay to play in the amounts Amazon was looking for.
How many employees will they actually have ?
I can see them using mostly automation.
These places aren't distribution centers. Automation won't even be on the table, as these are corporate offices. I'm sure some insignificant portion could telecommute, but even that is nothing. The locations are terrible all the way around.
What I don't understand is why those two cities still put up concessions - they should have just said "eh 50,000 or we won't give you anything" and forced Amazon's hand. Amazon probably wanted at least Crystal City since the beginning and it's becoming more and more apparent they just used this exercise to extract tax concessions. I don't blame them, but the government is also bad at negotiating.
I'm also not a fan of people complaining about having governments compete for a company's business.