Amazon Has Released Pictures of its HQ2

E-commerce giant Amazon is going to have a second headquarters in Virginia and has unveiled the latest look on it this week.

This includes renders of a “forest plaza” at the foot of HQ2′s centerpiece, a 350-foot-tall tower dubbed “The Helix.”

Amazon has also announced that it is planning to hire 1,900 more employees in Arlington, Virginia where it already has 1,600 workers.

The new roles span a variety of teams, including the company’s Alexa and cloud-computing divisions, as well as its growing chain of Fresh grocery stores.

The company said it will create roughly 25,000 jobs over the next decade at HQ2 and in the surrounding area.

Amazon selected Arlington as the site of HQ2, in addition to the Long Island City neighborhood of Queens, New York. It was in 2019 however that Amazon pulled out of its New York plans after backlash from local activists and City Council leaders.

In a company blog post, the company has shared the new design proposals for the second phase of construction at HQ2.

The forest plaza includes public seating areas and pathways enclosed by what it calls “forest rooms” that feature trees, a waterfall and other landscaping.

Amazon hopes to begin construction on the Helix and other office buildings on the site in 2022. Construction is expected to finish in 2025.
Amazon broke ground on the second headquarters in 2020. The Helix is slated to be built on a site within HQ2 referred to as “PenPlace,” which is expected to span roughly 2.8 million square feet of office space.

Amazon is also building two 22-story office towers in a development known as Metropolitan Park, south of PenPlace.

Disclaimer: We have no position in any of the companies mentioned and have not been compensated for this article.