Amazon’s Va. headquarters expected to have $15 billion economic impact by 2030

The Crystal City Metro stop in Arlington County, Va., near where Amazon will build its new headquarters. (Astrid Riecken/For The Washington Post)

The D.C. area will see $15 billion in new economic activity and 62,000 new jobs by 2030 with the arrival of Amazon’s corporate offices in Northern Virginia, according to a new study.

The report, released Friday by the Virginia Chamber Foundation, said operations of the Amazon offices alone will produce an estimated annual $6.4 billion from 2019 to 2030, supporting an average 27,928 jobs each year in the region. The total impact, which includes spinoff businesses and those that arise to serve the new employees, will be more than twice that, the report said.

Virginia will be the primary beneficiary of the new money, according to Christine Chmura, chief executive and chief economist at Chmura Economics & Analytics, the Richmond-based firm that conducted the study for the business association.

The commonwealth will reap $14.2 billion in economic activity over the next 12 years, 59,000 new jobs and $1.83 billion in new state tax revenue, mainly through individual income and sales taxes, the study said.

Seattle-based Amazon announced Nov. 13 that it had chosen Crystal City and Long Island City, N.Y., to share a new headquarters after a 14-month nationwide hunt for a second corporate home.

Virginia promised $573 million in direct incentives for 25,000 jobs, each expected to pay an estimated $150,000 per year. The state and Arlington County also will invest $223 million for transportation improvements that will benefit Amazon as well as the rest of the community, officials said.

Although the study did not include it, Virginia plans to spend $1.1 billion to expand technology education throughout the state. Part of that will go toward a new $1 billion graduate school campus for Virginia Tech that will be located two miles from the Amazon offices. (Amazon founder Jeffrey P. Bezos owns The Washington Post.)

Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam (D) basked in the study’s economic predictions, telling the Virginia Chamber Foundation in Williamsburg that Amazon and its ripple effect will help diversify an economy too dependent on federal contracting.

But he cautioned that while the state’s overall unemployment is at a 10-year low of 2.9 percent, that is not the case everywhere.

“If you go to the Eastern Shore, where I’m from . . . or Southside or the southwest of Virginia, we still have a lot of work to do,” he said. “We don’t want any part of the commonwealth to be left behind.”

Laura Vozzella contributed to this report.