After a lot of speculation and waiting, Amazon has finally announced that its second headquarters will be split between New York City and Arlington, VA. These cities will join Seattle to become the company’s three official headquarters, But, they also announced that they would be opening three new centers in North America, adding that Nashville, TN would be the location of the new “Operations Center of Excellence.” This center will bring 5000 new jobs to Nashville, while the 2 headquarter locations will each bring 25,000 new jobs to their respective cities.
New York State is paying Amazon $`1.525 billion in incentives, and with everything involved in the package, they will end up paying Amazon over $3 billion. The State of Virginia is only paying Amazon $550 million for their part of the deal, and Tennessee is paying $65 million. This is causing some uproar with New York City officials, who are saying the deal is not benefitting the city as much as it is the other chosen locations. Some critics are also angry at the fact that New York and Arlington are not the economically depressed regions that Amazon said it was going to rejuvenate with its HQ2, especially when cities like Pittsburgh and Cleveland were also being considered.