Amazon Halts Construction on Second Headquarters in Virginia As Part Of Restructuring Amid Macro Uncertainties

Amazon.Com, Inc AMZN is halting construction on its second headquarters near Washington.
John Schoettler, Amazon’s real estate chief, confirmed the pause in a statement to Bloomberg News.
Schoettler said the company remains committed to Arlington, Virginia, where Amazon has committed to spend $2.5 billion and hire 25,000 workers by 2030.
Also Read: Amazon Initiates Layoff Affecting 18K Employees: Report
But the construction moratorium will delay the online retailer’s arrival at its most significant real estate project.
The move coincides with the company’s deepest-ever job cuts and a reassessment of office needs to account for remote work.
The first phase of the campus, which the company calls HQ2, is nearing completion.
Amazon, which has more than 8,000 workers in the area, expects to start moving those employees to two newly completed office towers in a 2.1-million-square-foot development called Metropolitan Park, near the Pentagon and Washington National Airport, in June.
The delay affects a more significant phase across the street. It calls for three 22-story office towers and the 350-foot-tall (107-meter) Helix, a corporate conference center and indoor garden designed to echo the Spheres, plant-filled orbs at the heart of the company’s Seattle headquarters. Arlington officials granted the 2.8-million-square-foot project, PenPlace, its most crucial approval in April.
Amazon proliferated during the pandemic but has reassessed real estate projects to reflect remote work.
Meanwhile, construction projects in Bellevue, Washington, near Seattle, and Nashville, Tennessee, were paused while Amazon teams redesigned buildings.
Price Action: AMZN shares traded higher by 2.07% at $94.04 on the last check Friday.

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