Amazon on Thursday canceled its plans to build an expansive corporate campus in New York City after facing an unexpectedly fierce backlash from some lawmakers and unions, who contended that a tech giant did not deserve nearly $3 billion in government incentives.
The company, as part of its extensive search for a new headquarters, had chosen Long Island City, Queens, as one of two winning sites, saying that it would create more than 25,000 jobs in the city.
— The New York Times
Amazon announced the change of course for its hotly contested New York City HQ2 aspirations in a statement this morning:
After much thought and deliberation, we’ve decided not to move forward with our plans to build a headquarters for Amazon in Long Island City, Queens. For Amazon, the commitment to build a new headquarters requires positive, collaborative relationships with state and local elected officials who will be supportive over the long-term. While polls show that 70% of New Yorkers support our plans and investment, 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 with the project we and many others envisioned in Long Island City.
We are disappointed to have reached this conclusion—we love New York, its incomparable dynamism, people, and culture—and particularly the community of Long Island City, where we have gotten to know so many optimistic, forward-leaning community leaders, small business owners, and residents. There are currently over 5,000 Amazon employees in Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Staten Island, and we plan to continue growing these teams.
We are deeply grateful to Governor Cuomo, Mayor de Blasio, and their staffs, who so enthusiastically and graciously invited us to build in New York City and supported us during the process. Governor Cuomo and Mayor de Blasio have worked tirelessly on behalf of New Yorkers to encourage local investment and job creation, and we can’t speak positively enough about all their efforts. The steadfast commitment and dedication that these leaders have demonstrated to the communities they represent inspired us from the very beginning and is one of the big reasons our decision was so difficult.
We do not intend to reopen the HQ2 search at this time. We will proceed as planned in Northern Virginia and Nashville, and we will continue to hire and grow across our 17 corporate offices and tech hubs in the U.S. and Canada.
Thank you again to Governor Cuomo, Mayor de Blasio, and the many other community leaders and residents who welcomed our plans and supported us along the way. We hope to have future chances to collaborate as we continue to build our presence in New York over time.
49 Comments
Good. AOC is correct about a handful of things. This is one of them. Now go get money out of politics! also, I love the title of this article :)
AOC had nothing to do with it.
Yes it did. She drove them away like I said would happen in other thread a few weeks ago.
Nah. Look up Michael Gianaris. AOC might be a nice figurehead (& right wing punching bag) but she did little for this beyond grandstanding.
AOC is a congresswoman, and the Amazon site is in the district south of hers. Cable news loves to obsess over her, but she was not major player in this. This was a matter of the city and the state. tduds is right. Look up Michael Gianaris, the state senator for the district in which the site in located, and Jimmy Van Bramer, the city council member for the district in which the site is located. Amazon really shot itself in the foot when it said that it would oppose union organizing. That put corporate Democrats and the Unions that love them in a very tough spot.
She was out claiming credit for it.
Had AOC been a major factor, I would gladly give her credit. But it just doesn't seem like she was, unless she has some super human ability to psych out billionaires with just a few comments in the press or on twitter.
I think the fact that “a few comments in the press and on twitter.” Can cause them to leave speaks volumes to how unnecessary geographic location is in today’s world. Like I was saying in other thread, high tax/reg/cost states will have to give special treatments to stay competitive with low tax/reg/cost states. Imagine this on a national level if we raise taxes beyond whatever
that “f-this” threshold is.
^assuming she’s not exaggerating her role.
This is why taxation has limits. This is why socialism funded by redistribution will never work. It either leads to companies leaving, or transitioning into a class of oligarchs (even more so than we already have) that operate under special laws.
And if they leave the hi cost infrastructure crumbles....the left is operating under 20th century ideas about how cities work. Companies are not tied to locale anymore. They completely fail to understand this important technological and urbanization shift.
21st century western Cites are amenity driven, not utility driven.
Imagine people standing up against destructive business practices nationwide and getting backed up by their elected representatives. Would be lit.
What’s destructive and how do you stop it?
Bada bing, bada boom!
poor Beos, he was really counting on that $3b tax break ...
Yeah, I don’t agree with that break, but ny lost a lot of good jobs. Lose lose.
Bezos should purchase and revitalize Sears and J.C. Penney as a form of penance for all of this HQ2 bullshit.
I'm not too torn up about the loss of big department stores.
The job losses concern me.
What job losses? Can't lose what you never had. You should be more concerned with Amazon's pathetic wage scale, monopolistic practices, tax avoidance, etc.
I think thisisnotmyname is saying s/he is concerned about the loss of jobs in department stores. The retail apocalypse, AKA.
i love craftsman and briggs and stratton. i would hate to lose sears.
Wait till the automation apocalypse peaks.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cTsEzmFamZ8
^fantastic episode.
Andrew Yang talks automation, politics, and UBI...everyone needs to pay attention to this.
Sears is probably going to be gone by 2020.
This plan was in the same bonehead league as the northern Virginia move where the cost of housing is 2.7 times the national average. I don't know what family income it would take to live decently in NYC, upwards of $300,000 anyway. DC is not far behind. All so you can work for a bald gnome with a wife and four kids who can't keep his pants zipped.
Not sure what his infidelity has to do with it.
I wonder how many other companies are rethinking their New York expansion after this fiasco.
Dealing with Mayor DeBlasio and Governor Cuomo and the New York trade unions? What could go wrong? General Electric is cutting back drastically on their headquarters move to Boston also. That was a batpoo move from the start as well.
lolololol
Fuck that hashtag. Ayn Rand is at best a questionable source.
Also you can't lose what you never had. You can't save what you never had. All of this is propoganda. Congratulations, you're dancing to the tune of Bezos, conservatives.
Leftist: let’s give everyone lots of free stuff and pay for it with Billionaire taxes! Also Leftist: Get out Bezos! Your not wanted!
If taxation of billionaires is required to fund leftyland, then wouldn’t it make sense to want more billionaires? The average American understands this flawed logic. The average leftist is blinded by ideology.
The average useless troll on the internet relies on stere otypes to keep his worldview simple.
Good self assessment Pete! I’m glad to see you are reflecting.
You project as much as the shriveled husk of a Valencia orange in the white house.
The very idea that Socialism and Capitalism are opposite sides of a coin rather than ends of a spectrum on which we inhabit some point in the middle really fucks up the opportunity for meaningful discussion.
Everything is a bell curve, nothing is a silo. Proceed.
They're not even opposing ends of a spectrum. They're a collection of beliefs, views, facts, philosophies, etc. which have been put through a blender and then selectively scooped out a few tablespoons at a time, slapped with a label, and weaponized to call each other stupid.
That too.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nationalreview.com/2019/02/california-state-taxes-richest-one-percent/amp/
sums up what I been saying....
About the looney way the left builds a welfare state on the taxes of the 1%
You don't get out much do you?
Nearly every individual word in that billboard is false.
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