Real Estate
Based upon the RFI that
Amazon has put out there,
I think in every single one of the
categories Queens fits the bill.
THOMAS GRECH
Executive Director, Queens Chamber of Commerce
www.qns.com I LIC COURIER I NOVEMBER 2017 19
BY ANGELA MATUA
AMATUA@QNS.COM
When Amazon announced it was
looking for the perfect place to build
its new headquarters, elected officials
all around the country began furiously
pitching their cities and New York was
no exception.
Mayor Bill de Blasio released the
proposal he is sending to try to attract
the retail giant to one of four sites in
three boroughs. Not surprisingly, Long
Island City is one of the neighborhoods
included in the proposal.
In his letter to Amazon CEO Jeff
Bezos, which was co-signed by dozens
of state and city officials, de Blasio
called the five boroughs “hives of inge-nuity.”
He also argued that the city has
the most important resource Amazon
needs – talent.
“There are more New Yorkers with
a bachelor’s degree or above than in
Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle,
Washington, D.C., and Atlanta com-bined.
We are home to industry lead-ers
in tech, law, media and medicine,”
he wrote in the letter. “And we are
making sure that the next generation
of New Yorkers is prepared for the
21st-century economy by integrating
computer science education at every
level of the academic pipeline.”
Amazon is expected to invest more
than $5 billion to construct its second
North American headquarters, dubbed
HQ2, which they argue will create about
50,000 high-paying jobs. They’re look-ing
to build an 8.1-million-square-foot
facility in an area that is close to public
transportation, has access to talent and
amenities for its employees.
Of the 15 proposals submitted by
elected officials and business lead-ers,
the city chose four to present to
Amazon – Midtown West, Long Island
City, Brooklyn Tech Triangle and Lower
Manhattan. These proposals were cho-sen
because they met two key criteria:
they have the square footage available
for development and are close to public
transportation and major airports.
In the proposal, Long Island City was
described as a “creative, mixed-use
neighborhood” and “the city’s industrial
innovation center.”
Its proximity to JFK Airport, LaGuar-dia
Airport, Penn Station and Grand
Central were touted along with its variety
of restaurants, bars, museums and other
cultural institutions. The neighborhood
also has more than 13 million square
feet of “first-class real estate,” according
to the proposal.
In a previous interview, Thomas
Grech, the executive director of the
Queens Chamber of Commerce, said
that Queens is exactly what Amazon
is looking for.
“Based upon the RFI that Amazon
has put out there, I think in every single
one of the categories Queens fits the
bill,” he said.
Though the headquarters would bring
thousands of jobs, cities are offering
large tax breaks to the company that is
valued at $500 billion. Some are criticiz-ing
the company’s tactics and are argu-ing
that this bidding process is a way to
seek out a city that would provide them
with the heftiest tax incentives.
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is of-fering
the company $7 billion in city and
state tax incentives while Chula Vista
in California is offering the company
around $400 million in tax breaks.
Greg Leroy, executive director of
Good Jobs First, a national policy center
that aims to promote government and
corporate accountability, pointed out
that wherever the company decides to
build its HQ2, an influx of 50,000 new
employees may be a burden on public
infrastructure and the tab may be picked
up by taxpayers if Amazon is awarded
massive tax breaks.
“More families arriving means more
teachers to hire; more classrooms, roads,
water mains and sewerage to build; more
public safety to provide; and more trash to
pick up. All of those things cost money,”
he wrote in Fast Company. “But if Amazon
is paying no sales tax, no property tax, no
income tax, and is getting cash gifts from
its employees and/or the state treasury
by selling tax credits, then Amazon won’t
be bearing those new costs.”
New York City officials have said
the company will not be eligible for
any special incentives beyond what is
available to other companies.
“We are competing to bring Ama-zon
here because it means tens of
thousands of high-paying jobs for
New Yorkers,” said Melissa Grace,
deputy press secretary for the Eco-nomic
Development Corporation. “As
Photo courtesy of Flickr Creative Commons/Kat
the mayor has said, this isn’t a race
to the bottom for us. New York City’s
talented workforce, diverse economy
and strong neighborhoods are our
selling points — not big discretionary
tax benefits.”
Amazon will announce the winning
city sometime next year.
