So far, everyone except Amazon has picked the Washington D.C. area for its second headquarters. Fifty-nine weeks have gone by since Amazon told the world that it was ready to expand beyond its Seattle headquarters. It would make a $5 billion investment doing it and hire 50,000 highly-paid workers over the next decade or two.
No news is good news: Outside of the D.C. area, cities on the finalist list -- among them Dallas, Austin, Chicago, Denver, Atlanta, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and Newark -- have gracefully stood by as mostly Northern Virginia gets all the attention. But with so many pundits and media residing in the D.C. area, there could be a whole layer of inside-the-beltway hot air clouding HQ2. Bezos could surprise everyone.
Location Location Location: The real estate industry filled the void of HQ2 news. The Wall Street Journal reported that speculators are all over the D.C. area. Publicly-traded, real estate investment trust JBG Smith Properties, which has a market value of almost $5.2 billion, has gotten a good ride from it. JBG Smith is the largest commercial property owner in Crystal City, which is the latest frontrunner in greater D.C.
Another wait: Remember how Apple said in January that it was looking for another U.S. campus? It still hasn't said where it's going, but it did eliminate California and Texas, which already have an Apple presence. Apple has offices, call centers and data centers across the U.S. It hasn't said much about what its new campus will do. It made the announcement when it said it planned capital expenditures of $75 billion in the U.S. over five years. That included investments in manufacturing and tax payments for repatriation of overseas profits. Apple also said it would make the call by year-end, but there's been little speculation. Apple CEO Tim Cook has taken some jabs at the HQ2 hoopla.
Maybe Apple is like everyone else. It's still waiting to find out where Amazon HQ2 will go.
