After 11 months of hoping, praying, and more than a little begging, 18 finalist cities came away empty handed from the lottery for Amazon’s second headquarters, which promised the winner a Powerball of 50,000 high-paying jobs, $5 billion in direct investment, and an economic boon.
On Nov. 12, Amazon confirmed that it had chosen two locations—Long Island City in the New York borough of Queens, and the Crystal City neighborhood of Arlington, Va.—where it will split its hiring and investment plans for its second homes.
Amazon’s overhyped yet secretive selection process—starting with the announcement of its plans in September 2017, followed by a six-week pitch period that drew bids from 238 cities—produced a short list of metros whose elected officials and business leaders pleaded their cases and promised the moon: tax breaks, land grants, and infrastructure improvements in the billions of dollars. (Why this largesse should be bestowed on one company is a topic for another time.)
As it turned out, though, Amazon’s HQ2 picks may have been preordained. The two cities already had the greatest number of Amazon employees outside of Seattle, and they offer a robust talent pool. Arlington is also near Washington, D.C., where Amazon’s Chairman and CEO Jeff Bezos lords over the Washington Post.
See Also: Amazon selects HQ2 cities
If, in fact, the two winners were always the frontrunners, and this whole exercise was a charade (as some of the chagrined cities suspect), Amazon pulled off a masterful act of manipulation and mass hypnosis, convincing the other contenders they had a legit shot. Officials in places like Denver, Chicago, and Boston—which were among the “leaders” cited in media speculation—are probably still scratching their heads about why their cities were also-rans.
During its vetting process, the tech giant gained access to troves of financial and demographic data about the cities it was considering. I don’t think it’s too cynical to suggest that Amazon will eventually use this information for other business purposes.
What, exactly, will the two winning cities be getting for their efforts, aside from more mass transit congestion? Probably not equal to what Amazon’s 14-million-sf presence has meant to Seattle’s economy and growth.
The stage has been set for Round 2, where developers and AEC firms trip over each other trying to get a piece of whatever Amazon is planning to either build or renovate. (The New York Times reported that Amazon informed the winners that it wants 500,000 sf of office space available in 2019.)
But before any firms enter the fray, it’s worth remembering that Seattle-based NBBJ has designed a number of buildings for Amazon, including its Spheres glass domes in Seattle, for which Magnusson Klemencic Associates was the structural engineer.
Related Stories
| Aug 11, 2010
Bowing to Tradition
As the home to Harvard's Hasty Pudding Theatricals—the oldest theatrical company in the nation—12 Holyoke Street had its share of opening nights. In April 2002, however, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences decided the 1888 Georgian Revival building no longer met the needs of the company and hired Boston-based architect Leers Weinzapfel Associates to design a more contemporary facility.
| Aug 11, 2010
AIA course: MEP Technologies For Eco-Effective Buildings
Sustainable building trends are gaining steam, even in the current economic downturn. More than five billion square feet of commercial space has either been certified by the U.S. Green Building Council under its Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design program or is registered with LEED. It is projected that the green building market's dollar value could more than double by 2013, to as muc...
| Aug 11, 2010
BIM adoption tops 80% among the nation's largest AEC firms, according to BD+C's Giants 300 survey
The nation's largest architecture, engineering, and construction companies are on the BIM bandwagon in a big way, according to Building Design+Construction's premier Top 50 BIM Adopters ranking, published as part of the 2009 Giants 300 survey. Of the 320 AEC firms that participated in Giants survey, 83% report having at least one BIM seat license in house, half have more than 30 seats, and near...
| Aug 11, 2010
Thrown For a Loop in China
While the Bird's Nest and Water Cube captured all the TV coverage during the Beijing Olympics in August, the Rem Koolhaas-designed CCTV Headquarters in Beijing—known as the “Drunken Towers” or “Big Shorts,” for its unusual shape—is certain to steal the show when it opens next year.
| Aug 11, 2010
Robert F. Kennedy Main Justice Building
The Robert F. Kennedy Main Justice Building houses the U.S. Attorney General's office, the Justice Department headquarters, and the largest historic art collection of any GSA-built facility, so its renovation had to be performed with the utmost care. Offices housing hundreds of lawyers and staff had to remain operational during the construction of a brand new $3.
| Aug 11, 2010
Silver Award: Please Touch Museum at Memorial Hall Philadelphia, Pa.
Built in 1875 to serve as the art gallery for the Centennial International Exhibition in Fairmount Park, Memorial Hall stands as one of the great civic structures in Philadelphia. The neoclassical building, designed by Fairmount Park Commission engineer Hermann J. Schwarzmann, was one of the first buildings in America to be designed according to the principles of the Beaux Arts movement.
| Aug 11, 2010
Bronze Award: Garfield High School, Seattle, Wash.
Renovations to Seattle's historic Garfield High School focused mainly on restoring the 85-year-old building's faded beauty and creating a more usable and modern interior. The 243,000-sf school (whose alumni include the impresario Quincy Jones) was so functionally inadequate that officials briefly considered razing it.
| Aug 11, 2010
Managing the K-12 Portfolio
In 1995, the city of New Haven, Conn., launched a program to build five new schools and renovate and upgrade seven others. At the time, city officials could not have envisioned their program morphing into a 17-year, 44-school, $1.5 billion project to completely overhaul its entire portfolio of K-12 facilities for nearly 23,000 students.
| Aug 11, 2010
Tall ICF Walls: 9 Building Tips from the Experts
Insulating concrete forms have a long history of success in low-rise buildings, but now Building Teams are specifying ICFs for mid- and high-rise structures—more than 100 feet. ICF walls can be used for tall unsupported walls (for, say, movie theaters and big-box stores) and for multistory, load-bearing walls (for hotels, multifamily residential buildings, and student residence halls).
| Aug 11, 2010
Financial Wizardry Builds a Community
At 69 square miles, Vineland is New Jersey's largest city, at least in geographic area, and it has a rich history. It was established in 1861 as a planned community (well before there were such things) by the utopian Charles Landis. It was in Vineland that Dr. Thomas Welch found a way to preserve grape juice without fermenting it, creating a wine substitute for church use (the town was dry).
