If you've ever been to Washington, D.C., you'll know that Arlington is just across the Potomac River.
The Virginia suburb is home to countless federal government offices and serves as the headquarters of companies like Nestlé (NSRGF) , Rosetta Stone (RST) and AES.
Amazon (AMZN) also recently chose Arlington as the spot for its $2.5 billion HQ2 base.
On May 5, the Wall Street Journal broke the news that Boeing (BA) may soon be relocating its headquarters from their longtime home in Chicago to Arlington.
While Boeing is yet to officially announce it, two people familiar with the situation said that an announcement of the move could happen as early as the middle of next week.
Boeing Had A Whole History In Chicago
Boeing has been based in Chicago since 2001 when it moved its offices over from Seattle amid over $600 million in tax incentives from the city and surrounding counties.
The announcement happened just days after the attacks of Sept. 11.
But the headquarters, a 36-floor, $200 million space in the center of Chicago, had become expensive to maintain as only around 500 of the firm's 140,000-plus employees are based in the city.
But as Reuters reported last year, many of the firm's top executives were working primarily outside of Chicago even before the pandemic hit.
CEO Dave Calhoun was spending a lot of his time working out production difficulties at a South Carolina factory while CFO Brian West is more closely tied to the East Coast.
"A new crop of top executives based mainly on the coasts are managing industrial and safety certification problems at its major divisions and the lingering fallout from the 737 MAX and coronavirus crises," reporter Eric M. Johnson wrote in October 2021.
"At the same time, tax incentives heaped on Boeing by Chicago and Illinois run out at year-end."
Some employees called the Chicago offices a "ghost town."
Arlington's Government Clients
By contrast, the norther Virginia suburb (Arlington is not currently classified as its own city) is home to numerous military organizations and contractors.
Boeing already has a large office in its Crystal City neighborhood not far from Amazon's H2Q.
As the company is the world's second-largest aircraft producer after Airbus (EADSY), Boeing may have chosen the spot to be closer to the heart of one of its major clients: The federal government.
Boeing's defense and space units, in particular, find the core of its customer base in Washington.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin has reportedly spent months trying to sweet-talk Boeing into choosing Arlington for its headquarters.
The company, whose market cap was $92.86 billion as of May 2022, would bring significant business to the area.
But it seems that the motivation was mainly limited to sweet-talking. No Chicago-style tax breaks or other incentives on the part of Virginia were reported as of Thursday.
Boeing did not immediately reply to confirm the news of its relocation to TheStreet.
"For competitive reasons and to protect confidential company information, we cannot comment on current or potential economic development prospects," Arlington County spokesperson Jessica Baxter said in a statement provided to news outlets.
The news of the looming relocation did not do much to help Boeing shares, which have been down 32.80% in the last six months and were down 4.66% as of Thursday afternoon.
