For the last 12 years Seattle has been the home of Amazon. Since its headquarters in South Lake Union was built in 2010, the population of the Emerald City has gained 105,032 new occupants. That may change, because last year Amazon announced that it was beginning its search for a new city to house HQ2.
For a little while it seemed like New York City was going to be the next HQ2. If the deal went through, they would have received $2.988 billion from New York City’s various business subsidy programs, as well as multiple different tax breaks separate from the cities and states subsidies. It’s also well known that Amazon paid $0 in taxes on $11 billion in profit. This would have been a pretty sweet deal for Amazon, but the citizens of New York lashed out and protested in the streets. After the mass outcry, Amazon decided to pull out of its deal with New York.
An official statement from Amazon on Feb. 14, reads, “We do not intend to reopen the HQ2 search at this time. We will proceed as planned in Northern Virginia and Nashville, and we will continue to hire and grow across our 17 corporate offices and tech hubs in the US and Canada.” It appears Amazon will double down on its presence in the Washington area, Bellevue in particular. According to the Puget Sound business report, Amazon has put down a non-refundable payment on a 10-story Bellevue Corporate Plaza property on 108th Avenue North. Now Amazon already has about 2,000 employees in the former Expedia headquarters, and plans indicate that their goal is to have 4,500 employees by 2020.