Suffolk Downs Not the Choice, According to Amazon Rumors

Rumors persist to fly around about where Amazon will land its HQ2, and according to the Washington Post, it’s not going to be in the Boston area or part of the proposed Suffolk Down development in East Boston and Revere.

According to the New York Times this week, Amazon may split its HQ2 site with offices in Queens, N.Y., and Crystal City, Va. for its east coast headquarters. Crystal City is an urban neighborhood in the southeastern corner of Arlington County, Va., south of downtown Washington, D.C. Due to its extensive integration of office buildings and residential high-rise buildings using underground corridors, travel between stores, offices, and residences is possible without going above ground; thus, a large part of Crystal City is an underground city. It has 16,000 residents and 60,000 people who work there every day.

According to the Post, Amazon is in “advanced talks” with officials in Crystal City, Va., just outside Washington, D.C., about locating a massive second headquarters there, the Washington Post reported Saturday.

It is possible the company is in similar talks with other cities.

But many close watchers of the Amazon sweepstakes consider Metro Washington the front-runner for one of the biggest economic development projects especially since Amazon founder and chairman Jeff Bezos owns the Washington Post and has a large home in D.C.

No matter how many times he is asked, Tom O’Brien, founding partner and managing director of The HYM Investment Group, developing Suffolk Downs, will answer that his project does not rely on Amazon.

“If we don’t get Amazon we’ll get somebody else,” O’Brien told the Revere City Council Monday night. “We’ll keep plugging away. We’re going to make this a good place to live, to shop and we will lure in other companies, that’s the key. It’s been the story of all our lives – just keep working piece by piece and good things will happen.”

Amazon employs thousands at offices in Boston and Cambridge and a robotics facility in North Reading. Last spring Amazon said it will occupy an entire new building — separate from HQ2 — in the Seaport, with 2,000 employees, as well as holding an option for a second building with another 2,000 workers.