In choosing Long Island City as one of two new Eastern headquarters locations, Amazon picked a neighborhood in the nation’s largest city that might bring to mind Lawrenceville and the Strip District on steroids.
The Seattle e-commerce behemoth picked a riverfront section of New York that has recently been one of the busiest residential development areas of the country. That housing marks a transitional rebound from late 20th century decline of the manufacturing activity that once defined Long Island City, and now the site’s destined to become one of this century’s technology hubs.
The neighborhood is not located in Long Island but is part of the borough of Queens, just across the East River from Manhattan and quickly reachable to it by subway. It has been described as rapidly gentrifying this decade, with plenty of restaurants and arts institutions to complement new apartments and condos.
At the same time, the neighborhood has a pool of vacant office tower and commercial development space — the giant Citigroup financial firm plans to move 1,100 workers into its Manhattan business center from Queens’ tallest skyscraper — that will be available to Amazon.
Housing and office rental costs, while huge in comparison to Pittsburgh, are nowhere near as high in Long Island City as in Manhattan.
But other factors besides cost were high on Amazon’s list of criteria, with size emerging as a key factor. The company can fill its labor pool needs much more readily in the huge New York and Washington, D.C., metros than in smaller competitors like Pittsburgh and Denver.
“We were looking for a location with strong local and regional talent — particularly in software development and related fields,” the company’s statement said. Amazon is thus ending up in two places where its presence won’t have quite the same overall impact as other places on its list of 20 finalists.
Compared to a mid-sized city like Pittsburgh, the New York metropolitan area holds additional key advantages, including many more airport flights and destinations and proximity to other major businesses and institutions in a world financial center and destination city.
Tuesday’s announcement drew mixed reactions from elected officials in New York, with the governor and mayor lauding the benefits that will result from the tax incentives they offered.
Other office-holders protested government financial breaks going to a successful company whose project will put strains on local housing and infrastructure.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio agreed to a financial package that could reach $1.5 billion for Amazon over a 10-year span, in the form of tax credits connected to as many as 25,000 jobs and a cash grant based on the square footage of its office occupancy.
The company may obtain additional monetary breaks through specific city programs aimed at encouraging business development outside Manhattan.
City and state officials are counting on all that being justifiied by the many jobs, an anticipated $2.5 billion investment by Amazon, use of some 4 million square feet of office space and billions of dollars derived from spin-off tax revenue.
The company also said it would make contributions to a new school, local infrastructure and green space and that it would host a tech start-up incubator.
Some local officials planned protests, however, based on the heavy tax breaks and on the local community being shut out of the process.
“Offering massive corporate welfare from scarce public resources to one of the wealthiest corporations in the world at a time of great need in our state is just wrong,” New York state Sen. Michael Gianaris and New York City Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer, Democrats who represent the Long Island City area, said in a joint statement.
Gary Rotstein: grotstein@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1255.
First Published: November 13, 2018, 10:46 p.m.
