Interesting news on Boeing moving its corporate headquarters to Arlington. According to ArlNow:
- “Boeing had nearly 500 employees at its downtown Chicago headquarters in 2020, Reuters reported last year, noting that amid the pandemic the building was a ‘ghost town.'”
- “Boeing opened its East Coast headquarters in the Crystal City area about eight years ago.”
- “It’s unclear from early reporting whether the corporate headquarters would utilize the existing Crystal City office space or would take up additional space.”
So we’ll see what the details are, but for now just a few reactions and thoughts.
First, note how many big companies – Nestle, Amazon, Boeing, etc. – keep moving to Arlington, one of the deepest “blue” places in Virginia. Could it possibly be that corporate America actually *prefers* living in places (like Arlington) with great public services, world-class education and public transportation, access to superb health care, commitment to environmental protection, etc.? Gee, wonder why…
Second, although Glenn Youngkin will certainly claim credit for this move, note that Boeing was already heavily involved in Virginia during the Northam administration, with the company in May 2021 announcing a “$50 million commitment to Virginia Tech’s new Innovation Campus”; and also moving its “Defense, Space and Security unit from the St. Louis suburbs to Crystal City” (Arlington) when Terry McAuliffe was governor. Also, in this case, it appears that a major consideration for Boeing was to “place the aerospace company’s senior executives closer to key government decision makers in the nation’s capital.” So how much of this move was about Virginia, specifically, is hard to say…
Third, as State Sen. Scott Surovell says, “I bet anyone $1,000 that Arlington wouldn’t be landing Boeing’s Headquarters if Virginia had an abortion trigger law!” Great point by Sen. Surovell.
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