Amazon is said to be close to selecting two cities as the site of its second headquarters, dubbed HQ2: the Long Island City section of Queens, New York, and the Crystal City area of Arlington, Virginia, The New York Times reported Monday evening.
The reported selection follows nearly a year of lobbying by cities and regions across the US and Canada.
The Washington, DC, metro area was long seen as the front-runner for the contest, with Northern Virginia specifically seeming to pull ahead in recent months.
The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday that the e-commerce giant was considering a plan to develop its second headquarters in two different cities, with 25,000 employees at each of the campuses.