WASHINGTON — A group of Arlington residents are mobilizing against the possibility of Arlington landing Amazon’s second headquarters in North America.
D.C. and Arlington are competing against several other cities across the country to land HQ2, including Chicago and Denver, in bidding to become the new home for the site with the prospect it would be a huge boost to the local economy.
Amazon has said they would invest $5 billion in the headquarters, which they expect would bring more than 50,000 high paying jobs to the region.
Some are skeptical of the benefits that landing Amazon’s new headquarters would bring.
The group Our Revolution Arlington, which supports worker cooperatives with more broadly held ownership, said Amazon would not bring the kind of growth they would like to see in Arlington.
“Since Amazon has tied your hands in involving the public in the process, our coalition came together to create a space for the public to discuss Amazon’s HQ2, and what it would mean for Arlington, ” said Rashan Abraham.
Arlington County Board Chair Katie Cristol said the board doesn’t have any new information to report about where Arlington stands in the site selection.
Board member John Vihstadt told Amazon opponents at Saturday’s board meeting that they will proceed cautiously,
“With respect to Amazon, this is one of the central challenges we face today, is how we are going to manage and shape our growth,” he said. “We need to understand and verify the pluses of Amazon, and at the same time we need to explore how best to mitigate any minuses, and whether in fact we can mitigate the minuses.”
Our Revolution Arlington asked board members to attend a planned meeting on Amazon HQ2 Thursday night at Arlington’s Central Public Library on 1015 N. Quincy Street from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.
