Austin out as Amazon picks New York, Virginia for HQ2

The Austin area will not be the home of Amazon’s massive second headquarters project.

The online retailer said Tuesday that it has chosen to split the development evenly between Long Island City in New York and National Landing in Arlington, Virginia. The project is expected to include a $5 billion investment from Amazon and eventually create up to 50,000 jobs averaging more than $100,000 in annual salary.

Amazon also said Tuesday that it has selected Nashville for a new Center of Excellence for its Operations business, which is responsible for the company’s customer fulfillment, transportation, supply chain and other similar activities. The center will create more than 5,000 jobs, Amazon said.

Austin was one of 238 cities throughout North America that submitted bids to Amazon in October to land the project, which Amazon calls HQ2.

In January, Austin was one of 20 cities Amazon said remained in the competition. Dallas was the only other Texas city to make the short list.

On Tuesday, the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce, which had led the metro area's bid for HQ2, congratulated Virginia and New York and said it wished "them and Amazon well."

"Amazon already calls our region home. It has created thousands of jobs here with Amazon Web Services, the fulfillment center in San Marcos and, just last year, it acquired Whole Foods—a true Austin original," the chamber said in a written statement.

Amazon has said HQ2 will start out as a 500,000-square-foot facility but eventually be equivalent to its Seattle headquarters, which is comprised of 8.1 million square feet throughout 33 buildings and a staff of more than 40,000. Amazon indicated the first phase of HQ2 will begin in 2019.

Before Amazon announced its decision, analysts and researchers said Austin’s young labor force, tech scene and quality of life gave the area a chance at landing the project, despite concern over transportation and other issues.

To read more of the Statesman's coverage of Austin not being picked for Amazon's HQ2 project, click here.