That White Flint site is looking pretty promising!
I agree that White Flint is promising, but I’m not thrilled with the idea. The traffic on Rockville Pike and 270 is bad enough. Amazon may assume that a lot of people will take the Metro to work because of the nearby station, and they may be right, but that just shifts the traffic to other areas and fills the parking lots at other Metro stations.
Isn’t Lord and Taylor still stubbornly clinging to White Flint?
I used to leave not far from there (and I loved going to Rodman’s, lol). I don’t think White Flint is nearly big enough although it’s great that Metro rail is nearby.
Yes, L&T is still there, not sure how they would work around that. Rumor has it Amazon has toured the entire WF area and interestingly, an Amazon executive involved in the search is from MoCo and was the head of some MoCo business development group a few years back. Not sure how I feel about the cons - traffic and strain on schools - but it is intriguing and should have many benefits as well.
Wow, the Maryland state government threw in the kitchen sink and the whole kitchen, too. I would like to think that the state government’s experts are sharp enough to accurately predict a positive return on the state’s investment dollars, but I dunno.
Wow… I live in Montgomery County for much of my adult life, and still go there once every 6 weeks or so. I HATE dealing with the already existing traffic on 355. But MAYBE they will improve the infrastructure and make things much more walkable as part of the deal. I have many friends who would be thrilled to see their homes appreciate in value as part of the deal.
MoCo is now streamlining some zoning practices - for companies with 25,000+ employees - now who could that be?
Amazon delegations are currently visiting the 20 ‘finalist’ cities in order to gain further information. They were in Toronto in March. I couldn’t say anything at the time but it has now been made public.
I still think that Toronto is a serious contender due to friendly immigrant labor policies.
^^ Despite that article I think it’ll be a monumental upset if it’s not in the DC area.
I walked near the Amazon headquarter yesterday to get my annual mammograms done. I was AMAZED with the number of new slick condos and still more constructions going on around there. Wherever the second HQ will be, they will have to endure lots and lots of constructions!!
I’m enduring it at work as we speak… the construction workers don’t work weekends or after 5. Oh the noise!!!
Alas, the “Amazon Boom” is one reason why it’s unlikely I will retire in my beloved Pacific Northwest, or at least Seattle proper. On the upside, the value of my parents’ Seattle home is vastly inflated. There’s always a bit of sun following a raincloud.
Unless you’re in Seattle where the clouds will remain… 
A story in today’s LA Times says Jeff Bezos’ commitment to gay rights may be an important wild card in the location decision, although that wasn’t specifically mentioned in the formal request for proposals. That’s also a big issue for many of the millennials they’ll be trying to attract to their workforce. Apparently as they’re going around visiting the finalist locations, Amazon people have been asking a lot of questions about how LGBTQ-friendly the environment is. And some are speculating Atlanta may be out because of the climate on those issues in the Georgia legislature.
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-amazon-headquarters-gay-rights-20180427-story.html
A story in today’s NY Times says Amazon has completed its visits to the 20 cities on the short list. The Amazon delegation asked the cities how they would deal with the impact on transportation and affordable housing if selected.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/29/technology/amazon-hq2-seattle.html
Meanwhile, our City Council is looking at a new per employee-hour tax on businesses to fund some programs to fght homelessness (all while having zero idea what those programs would be). Unbelievable. Even our very liberal newspaper labeled this tax a complete lunacy.
Hmm that’s funny considering some of the cities ALREADY have horrible traffic problems( Boston, Atlanta, Chicago, DMV)
Not the new HQ, but Amazon announced today an expansion of their Vancouver operations and will hire for 3000 new jobs in a new 400,000+ sq. ft. office. This will add to the 1000 employees already in Vancouver and the 6000 across Canada.