Bad news for those in favor of Amazon’s forthcoming New York presence; the company just announced that they have canceled plans to make a headquarters in Queens. The project divided lawmakers and citizens of the borough and beyond, with many heralding the potential for job creation and others criticizing the deal struck to bring the tech giant to the Big Apple, which offered Amazon $3 billion in government incentives.
After a grueling and much-publicized application process that saw mayors of major cities scrambling to lure Amazon to their cities, Mayor Bill De Blasio and Governor Andrew Cuomo successfully locked down one of the two eventual sites; the other campus is still expected to go up in Crystal City, a municipality located in Northern Virginia. It is difficult to ignore the politics involved in this huge New York deal, that now will never be. According the the New York Times, newly-elected congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s district sits right next to where the headquarters would have been, and she and other politicians like Senator Michael Gianaris were vocal that the project did not have their support.
That opposition was a main factor in Amazon’s decision to abandon their plans. The company issued a statement saying, “A number of state and local politicians have made it clear that they oppose our presence and will not work with us to build the type of relationships that are required to go forward.”
Although bringing Amazon to the Long Island City neighborhood of Queens would have caused a stir, that was attractive to many. Some viewed the deal as an opportunity for the neighborhood to grow and diversify economically since Amazon promised to deliver 25,000 jobs. Other developers and business owners may have been eager to follow the tech giant, leading to a possible boom in the area.
However, the opposition felt they would likely not be the ones to benefit from this job creation, and that the gentrification of the area would in fact result in their being pushed out entirely by increasing rents and general cost of living. They further called into question was the ethicality of the incentive given to Amazon in order to bring them to New York. Included in these deals were promises of nearly eight million square feet of office space, and the near-absolute elimination of veto power by the city planner.
All of this conflict proved too much for Amazon to deal with, and since many other cities are vying for their attention, they likely know they can have their pick of the bunch. While Cuomo and De Blasio have reached out to Jeff Bezos, they have yet to speak so there is no sign that this decision could be reversed.
The headquarters in Virginia will go forward as planned and so far there is no indication that Amazon is in search of another new location.
