- Amazon filed its proposed development plans for its second headquarters (HQ2) outside of Seattle in Arlington, Virginia in May.
- The Metropolitan Park site will feature: two, 22-story LEED Gold-certified sustainable office buildings, 50,000 square feet of retail space, 1.1 acres of open and green spaces, and bike parking for 600 cyclists.
- Amazon intends to invest $2.5 billion in building HQ2.
- Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.
Amazon filed its proposed development plans in the spring for its upcoming HQ2 headquarters in Arlington, Virginia, and the company projects that construction will begin in Q1 of 2020.
“As with our Seattle headquarters, we plan to invest in developing a new headquarters in Arlington that will grow alongside its neighbors, supporting local businesses, building new public spaces for all to enjoy, and integrating sustainable design features throughout our campus,” John Schoettler, Amazon’s Vice President of Global Real Estate and Facilities, wrote in a May blog post.
Amazon intends to create 400 new jobs in Arlington in 2019 and 25,000 jobs in the next decade. Amazon has had a presence in Virginia since 2010, investing $34 billion into employee compensation and infrastructure in the Commonwealth.
Plans for HQ2 are split into three phases. The first phase in Crystal City of Arlington represents all 2019 progress: Amazon opened its first temporary office in Crystal City in June, and it will add additional temporary office space later in the year. Phase two focuses on the Metropolitan Park area of Pentagon City in Arlington, for which construction will begin in 2020 once Amazon’s development plans are approved by Arlington. Finally, phase three will represent construction in Pen Place in Arlington. Altogether, that’s nearly 4.8 million square feet of Amazon space in the city of Arlington.
Amazon famously backed out of its plan to split HQ2 between Virginia and New York in February 2019 after running into vocal pushback from local NYC politicians and residents.
Check out Amazon's proposed development plans for HQ2 phase two at Metropolitan Park:
Amazon's three-phase plan for HQ2 in Arlington involves three neighborhoods.
Phase one, currently underway, is in Crystal City. Phase two in Metropolitan Park and phase three in Pen Place are forthcoming.
Here's a look at the neighborhood Phase 2: Metropolitan Park will be fitting into.
The Metropolitan Park phase of HQ2 will have 1.1 acres of public open space.
Around an existing centrally-located park, these public and green spaces will include a dog park and farmers markets.
Here's how that open space will be allotted.
Employees will have access to the rooftop gardens on the office buildings.
There will be enough parking spots for 600 bikes.
Amazon will make space for 600 bikes to be stored, and it plans to extend an existing cycle path, with the aim of bolstering Arlington's cycling infrastructure. There will also be showers and lockers to encourage biking to work.
There will be 50,000 square feet of street-level retail space.
Besides restaurants and shops, there will also be a daycare center open to local families and Amazon employees with children.
Here's the layout for bike parking and retail space.
There will be two LEED Gold-certified sustainable office buildings.
Amazon will be transforming one block of vacant warehouses into two sustainable office buildings yielding 2.1 million square feet of energy-efficient space. Each tower will be 22 stories and designed for LEED Gold-certification.
The level of LEED certification is determined by the number of points a building scores across several sustainability categories, including: energy and atmosphere, location and transportation, and water efficiency. Gold is the second highest LEED sustainability ranking behind Platinum.
All of which will be near public transportation.
With 25,000 incoming employees, public transit has to be a major consideration for Amazon. HQ2 will have a nearby Virginia Railway Express (VRE) station, bus lines, and two metro stations.
Amazon will be investing $2.5 billion in building HQ2.
To put that into perspective, Amazon spent $4 billion on its Seattle headquarters. The company has hired around 5,000 employees in Seattle annually for the past decade, and it calculates that it has generated over 50,000 jobs.
HQ2's Metropolitan Park site will be a quick commute from Washington DC.
The morning commute from the White House to Metropolitan Park is about 30 minutes on the metro.
