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Speculation had swirled since September 2017 when the global giant Internet retailer said it was seeking proposals from cities and metropolitan areas across North America to compete for its second headquarters.
The 500,000 square-foot facility known as HQ2 was expected to include $5 billion in private investment and create as many as 50,000 new high-paying jobs.
But now comes the dramatic plot twist.
Call it HQ2 times two.
Those 50,000 jobs, many in the tech industry, will now be divided at new headquarters in Long Island City and Crystal City, Virginia (across the Potomac from Washington, D.C.), bringing billions of dollars in economic stimulus.
The Crystal City location is closed to the estate of Amazon founder, chairman and CEO Jeff Bezos, who also owns The Washington Post.
In addition, Amazon announced it will be opening an operations center in Nashville, Tennessee, with 5,000 new jobs.
The driving force behind the split is to allow Amazon to recruit more of the best tech talent. Long Island City and Crystal City also have access to mass transit and major highways and are both within 45 minutes of international airports.
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