The Impact of HQ2: Amazon's Headquarters By the Numbers

Amazon's HQ2 saga has finally reached its finale: The tech giant is splitting its new headquarters between two locations in the two most important metropolises on the East Coast.

HQ2 and HQ3 (or HQ2 and 2A, if you prefer) will be located in Long Island City, Queens across the East River from Manhattan, and Crystal City, Virginia, across the Potomac River from Washington, DC and a stone's throw from the Pentagon. Amazon has renamed its VA location "National Landing."

As Amazon and state governments face backlash from local communities over the hefty tax breaks the company is set to receive, along with myriad complications from rising property prices and infrastructure and transportation issues, it's worth examining Amazon's economic footprint both from its Seattle mothership and in the proposed HQ2 locations.

The best indication of Amazon's impact on a large urban community—both benefits and drawbacks—is to look at the one Amazon has already occupied for decades. Statista aggregated data from Amazon and news reports on how each HQ location stacks up in terms of investment, employees, salary, tech recruiting talent, and of course, tax breaks.

Seattle is the second-best market for tech talent next to Silicon Valley. Third is Washington, DC, and fifth is New York City.

In Seattle, Amazon has spent more than $4 billion on real estate and currently employs around 45,000 people in its mothership, with an average salary of $110,000. Rather than residing in a centralized complex a la the Silicon Valley giants or Microsoft across the bay in Bellevue, Amazon's evolving collection of office buildings, warehouses, bookstores, grocery stores, and glass bubbles are scattered throughout the city of Seattle, creating what residents have referred to as 'Amazonia.'

Aside from how Amazon has changed the makeup of Seattle, the company also has a total of $54 million in undeferred taxes under Washington state's high-tech corporate incentives. In Amazon's negotiations with the 20 finalist cities it was considering for HQ2, it's clear that tax breaks were a big part of the deal.

Amazon plans to make a $2.5 billion investment in real estate and local infrastructure in both Long Island City and National Landing, along with hiring 25,000 new employees in each location with an estimated average salary of $150,000. The proposed salary number factors into a number of the potential tax breaks Amazon will receive in each state, so there's reason to be skeptical of a figure that's $40k higher than its Seattle average. Amazon clarified to PCMag that the $150k average covers all corporate employees, including executives, that Amazon expects to be working at the new locations.

Amazon will receive a $1.2 billion discretionary tax credit from New York state and a cash grant from Empire State Development of $325 million based on the square footage of the new headquarters. In Virginia, the company will receive performance-based direct incentives of $573 million, including a workforce cash grant from the Commonwealth of Virginia of up to $550 million based on $22,000 for each job created over the next 12 years. Amazon will receive this incentive only if it creates the forecasted jobs.

According to Amazon, there are also "performance-based direct incentives" of $1.525 billion from New York State as part of the deal, which equate to $48,000 per job calculated based on that average $150k salary of the 25,000 new employees. Amazon plans to start development on both HQ2 locations in 2019, but on behalf of local lawmakers and officials who were not included in the negotiation process, it's fair to ask why one of the richest companies in the world needed billions in tax breaks to invest in their communities.

This article originally appeared on PCMag.com.