Editor’s note: This story originally ran on Nov. 6 and was updated on Nov. 13 after Amazon made its decision.

America’s largest online retailer is officially coming to one of the country’s smallest counties.

Amazon (AMZN) will split its long-awaited second headquarters between Crystal City in Arlington, Va., and Long Island City in New York more than a year after the Seattle firm began its “HQ2” search. But even a year ago, the front-runner status of Washington, D.C.’s next-door neighbor was evident.

Looking at not just the four main criteria the company laid out for prospective cities, but also the lesser specifications set out in Amazon’s request-for-proposals document for would-be HQ2 hosts, Arlington offers serious advantages. At the same time, some realities of life in this 26-square-mile jurisdiction, also my home, could complicate Amazon’s big move.

Location and transportation

Numerous cities could claim compatibility with Amazon’s core HQ2 priorities—a metro area with a million-plus people, a “stable and business-friendly environment,” urban or suburban locales that could “attract and retain strong technical talent” and big and creative thinking about the retailer’s space needs.

But Amazon’s transportation-specific requirements are so in line with Arlington’s existing infrastructure, that the company might as well have taken them from the county’s economic-development office. Crystal City, just across the Potomac from D.C., is barely three miles from the center of the nation’s capital, easily beating Amazon’s 30-mile maximum distance from a population center.

Amazon also wants an international airport within 45 minutes, which is more than enough time to drive from Crystal City to Dulles International Airport even in rush-hour traffic. Well, most days. More important, Washington National Airport—with two Alaska Airlines (ALK) non-stops a day to Seattle—is so close that you can walk to it from Crystal City.

Crystal City also sits just off Interstate 395, the primary highway into D.C. from Northern Virginia, and features a Metro station served by the Blue and Yellow lines as well as a Virginia Railway Express commuter-rail stop. The latter only offers weekday service. For travel to Amazon’s other prospective HQ2 location, Union Station and its frequent Amtrak service to NYC is a quick drive or a two-train Metro ride away.

Office space

Amazon also wants a lot of free space upfront for HQ2, which intersects with a lingering problem for Arlington: Its commercial real-estate vacancy rate has remained stubbornly stuck at around 20%, which has left entire buildings in the Crystal City submarket open.