Amazon will pause construction of some buildings at the second headquarters it is building in Arlington, the company confirmed Friday, a setback for the e-commerce giant that just a few years ago promised Northern Virginia an economic boom and multiple office towers filled with employees.
In a more than year-long sweepstakes late last decade, Amazon dangled its HQ2 campus with 50,000 jobs and billions of dollars in capital investments. Hundreds of cities across North America applied, offering hefty incentives to attract the company, and eventually Amazon gave half the prize — $2.5 billion — to a site just across the river from D.C.
But then the pandemic arrived in March 2020 and kept workers home. More recently, Amazon’s business suffered a decline because of overexpansion. Since then, it’s laid off 18,000 corporate employees and slowed hiring and growth at its warehouses.
