Another rumor hints at Amazon's HQ2 landing in northern Virginia

It's been a while since we checked in on the race to land Amazon's highly-coveted HQ2 but a new rumor reinforces the possibility that northern Virginia could be the place Jeff Bezos lands his corporate behemoth's new home.

A report by the Washington Post (also owned by Bezos) on Saturday morning said that discussions have heated up around a location in Crystal City, Virginia, which is located across the Potomac from southern Washington, D.C. and nestled right next to Reagan International Airport.

One key hint, according to the Post, is that a Crystal City real estate developer has pulled listings from the market, possibly in anticipation of those locations being renovated to host the first wave of HQ2's new employees.

Another, more telling hint surfaced on Saturday when Mike Grella, an Amazon executive, sent out a tweet all but confirming that the Post's reporting is legitimate.

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"Memo to the genius leaking info about Crystal City, VA as #HQ2 selection," Grella's tweet began, in an apparent public confirmation that someone is leaking info about Amazon's HQ2 plans.

This isn't the first time the Arlington County area has come up as the front-runner for the new Amazon locale. Way back in February, curious web traffic surges from a private, internal Amazon source to a local story about the accolades Arlington Co. had received for environmentally-friendly building stoked excitement that the area was high up on Amazon's list.

Crystal City's proximity to D.C. -- a 10-to-15 minute drive from the U.S. Capitol, per Google Maps -- is also a big selling point and one that makes sense given Amazon's size and Bezos's efforts to garner Pentagon contracts for his Blue Origin space flight company.

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Of the 20 locations shortlisted in the HQ2 sweepstakes, three are in the D.C. area: Northern Virginia, Montgomery County, Maryland, and D.C. itself. The only other finalists clustered together like that are New York City and Newark, NJ.

Perhaps not coincidentally, online betting site Bovada currently lists northern Virginia as a very, very heavy favorite in the HQ2 sweepstakes, way up from the slight edge Bovada gave it earlier in 2018.

We should find out shortly where HQ2 will land. Bezos has previously said it would be announced by the end of 2018 and there's less than two months left until the calendar flips over. So get ready but don't be surprised when northern Virginia gets the Bezos stamp of approval.

UPDATED Nov. 4, 2018, 10:55 a.m. with news of Amazon executive Mike Grella's telling tweet.