spokes hang from the fences, add- ing an artsy touch. The e-tailer’s plans for the
Metropolitan Park site emphasize its commitment to community outreach. It will invest $14 million to double the size of a one-acre swath of green space already in place there, adding amenities such as wide sidewalks and public artwork. (Amazon is contributing $225,000 to the Arlington County Public Art Fund.) HQ2 also will include a 700-person meeting center and a 160-slot daycare facil- ity, both open for public use, and an underground parking facility of nearly 2,000 spaces. Bus shelters, bike lanes with
protective curbing and 600 parking spaces for cyclists are also in the mix, as well as space for a farm- ers market and a dog park. All Amazon offices are dog-friendly, Mulhall says, adding that “up to 7,000 dogs come to work at Ama- zon every day.” To further facilitate interaction
with its neighborhood, the street- level floors of both HQ2 towers will be given over to 69,545 square feet of retail space, with HQ2 lob- bies relegated to the second floors. The towers, which together eventu- ally will house 12,500 employees, are set to open in 2023. For a company with one of the
most ubiquitous and recognizable logos on Planet Earth, it’s notable that the HQ2 towers will have a conspicuous lack of external Amazon branding. It’s an approach the company also follows at its Seattle headquarters, known for its distinctive trio of spheres. The HQ2 towers will be
LEED Platinum-certified and 100% powered by energy pro- duced on-site or through credits obtained from external renewable energy sources. The towers will feature 13 green roofs and terr- aces, with one building trimmed in blue and the other in red in a stepped-back design intended to minimize the shadows cast over the streetscape.
By the end of 2020, Amazon plans to lease all 14 stories of this building under construction by owner JBG Smith Properties at 1770 Crystal Drive. HQ2 will include leased space in addition to the two towers Amazon will own.
Plans for 4.2 million square
feet of additional Amazon office space at the 10-acre Pen Place site in Pentagon City are expected to be fleshed out this year and come to fruition in 2025. Buoyed by Amazon’s mas-
sive commitment to HQ2, JBG Smith intends to redevelop about 2.6 million square feet in the area, including erecting five residential buildings and an office tower. A new entertainment and shopping complex anchored by a 49,000-square-foot Alamo Drafthouse Cinema is one of the developer’s priorities. Although Crystal City was once an enter- tainment wasteland, one of the main thoroughfares in the area, Crystal Drive, now is lined with eateries ranging from fine dining establishments such as chef José Andrés’ Spanish restaurant, Jaleo, to fast-casual emporiums such as Sweetgreen and Chick-fil-A.
The Arlington Chamber of
Commerce and the Northern Virginia Economic Development Alliance fore- cast that all the development attendant to HQ2 will create more than 47,000 direct and indirect jobs. As one might easily surmise,
Arlington County is loving all of this. Since the Amazon announce-
ment, Marquez says, the county has been getting cold calls from companies around the globe that hadn’t previously considered Arlington. The county’s small- business program has been “slammed” with inquiries too, she says, from companies eager to partner with Amazon. “People don’t realize the work
that Amazon does with small busi- nesses,” she says. As to the future, Marquez expects
“more and more momentum to come.” “This,” she says in an under-
statement, “is pretty exciting for everybody.”
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