Amazon has listed a job posting online for an economic development manager to locate in the Washington metropolitan area, spurring a new round of speculation that the technology giant may locate its second headquarters facility in the region.
According to Inside NOVA, job responsibilities include “working directly with state and community economic development, workforce and labor, taxation, and other key government agency officials, as well as chambers of commerce, utilities, and other key public/private stakeholder groups.”
(The Inside NOVA article linked to the job posting. Since then, apparently, Amazon has taken it down. The URL now delivers a the-page-you’re-looking-for-seems-to-have-disappeared message.)
Meanwhile, Las Vegas odds makers now rate Northern Virginia as the top contender to win the Amazon sweepstakes, followed by Washington, D.C., with Montgomery County, Md. also a contender. From the Odds Shark website:
Which City Will Win the Bid to Host Amazon HQ2?
Odds as of July 26 at Bovada
- Northern Virginia, Virginia +240
- Washington, D.C. +350
- Austin, Texas +400
- Boston, Massachusetts +450
- Toronto, Ontario +500
- Atlanta, Georgia +900
- Montgomery County, Maryland +1200
- Philadelphia, Pennsylvania +2000
- Raleigh, North Carolina +2500
- Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania +3000
- Chicago, Illinois +4000
- Nashville, Tennessee +4000
- New York City, New York +4500
- Denver, Colorado +5000
- Dallas, Texas +5000
- Indianapolis, Indiana +5000
- Columbus, Ohio +5000
- Newark, New Jersey +5000
- Los Angeles, California +6000
- Miami, Florida +7500
Brace yourselves, folks. Amazon is expected to make an announcement by the end of the year.
Jim Bacon publishes the Bacon’s Rebellion blog
5 comments
Regarding the actual job, my guess is the Loudoun’s Economic Development Director Buddy Rizzer will get the job and get a big pay raise.
I have to agree with the oddsmakers and think it is coming to NOVA along the Dulles Corridor. Bezos’s #1 enemy is government regulation/taxation. With the purchase of the Washington Post, a local house, and the establishment of Amazon Web Services as a necessary part of a functioning federal government, he is ingratiating himself/Amazon into the DC culture. Putting HQ2 here is the next logical step.
What a nightmare for Loudoun county. Amazon intends to bring in 50,000 employees plus their spouses and families. Loudoun is already the fastest growing county in the nation with a constant need for more roads, schools, firehouses, libraries, and other services. What will 50,000 to 100,000 more cars on Loudoun roads do to our traffic congestion which is already terrible? No thanks, go away Amazon.
Sorry my friend… you’re getting Amazon good and hard. Look on the bright side though Jeanine… your house will be worth millions soon and you can move to Madison county where we are not communist yet.
I don’t think its quite that grim. And I say that as someone who lives close to one of the proposed sites.
Their new HQ will eventually ramp up to 50k employees, but the number will be much lower at first. And they’re not relocating all of those jobs from Seattle, many will be local hires who already live in the area.
Also, that growth is still coming regardless of Amazon’s decision. There’s no avoiding it now. Every square inch of undeveloped land in eastern Loudoun is going to end up as either a mixed use development or a data center. So we might as well get a ton of new jobs to go along with it.
And if it screws things up too badly then I’ll just sell my house (at an overly-inflated price…thanks Amazon!) and move some place better.