Amazon made it official Tuesday, announcing that it will build new headquarters in Northern Virginia and New York City, pledging to create 25,000 jobs at each site and ending a year of intense speculation and competition.
The company also announced that it has selected Nashville for 5,000 jobs as part of a new operations hub responsible for customer fulfillment, transportation, and supply-chain and similar activities.
The choice of Crystal City in Arlington County as one of the winners cements Northern Virginia’s reputation as a magnet for business and will potentially reshape the Washington region into an eastern outpost of Silicon Valley over the next decade.
The triumph came with a price tag, details of which became public for the first time Tuesday after months of closed-door negotiations. Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam (D) and Arlington leaders agreed to give Amazon direct subsidies totaling $573 million based on the company creating 25,000 jobs with an average salary of $150,000.
The state and county also will invest a total of $223 million for transportation improvements that will benefit Amazon as well as the rest of the community, officials said.