12 OCTOBER 26, 2017 RIDGEWOOD TIMES WWW.QNS.COM
EDITORIAL
It’s Amazon Prime time for Queens
Nothing delivers for a community
THE HOT TOPIC
STORY:
Cinema multiplex with high-tech
sensory ‘4-D’ theater coming to
Flushing in 2018
SUMMARY:
A huge downtown Flushing
development will bring the neighborhood
the latest in cutting-edge
cinema experiences next year.
REACH:
21,570 people (as of 10/23/17)
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more than a company
that provides thousands of
good-paying jobs for its people.
Amazon, the world’s largest online
retailer, is looking for a place to build
its second headquarters, promising to
bring to the lucky community tens of
thousands of jobs and a new stream of
dependable revenue for everyone.
The de Blasio Administration has
asserted itself by putting in a strong
bid to Amazon, identifying four sites
— including Long Island City — as ideal
spots for the conglomerate to build an
8.1-million-square-foot facility that
would generate up to 50,000 new jobs.
With all due respect to our friends
in the other boroughs, we know that
Long Island City is indeed the best spot
in New York City for Amazon to build
its second home.
Amazon’s looking for a place with
easy access to public transportation.
Long Island City has it, with eight
subway lines, the Long Island Rail
Road and the Long Island Expressway
running through it. More than 1.5
million people live within 45 minutes
of the neighborhood, giving Amazon
a considerably wide talent base from
which to draw its employees.
There’s also considerable land in
Long Island City where Amazon can
build the headquarters it needs, but
that window is fast closing, as new
development seems to rise up out of
the neighborhood on an almost daily
basis.
Naturally, the circumstances surrounding
development in the area
are among the potential drawbacks of
building Amazon’s second headquarters
in Long Island City. The current
infrastructure is certainly not enough
to handle what is already in the neighborhood.
Can you possibly pile more
people onto a 7 train at Queensboro
Plaza every rush hour?
Even so, an Amazon HQ in LIC is too
good to pass up. The ability to create
50,000 new jobs in this borough has the
potential to create a new revenue stream
to fund the necessary infrastructure
improvements in the neighborhood
and other parts of Queens. It brings
also the potential to provide thousands
of Queens residents with steady jobs and
movement up the economic ladder.
In order for this to deal to succeed,
however, the city should explore a
public-private partnership with Amazon
to fund infrastructure projects
in the area (and we don’t mean drones,
either). Rather than just doling out tax
breaks, a partnership with Amazon
can help bring in the resources needed
to modernize Long Island City and
fulfi ll the area’s true potential.
To coin a phrase, it’s prime time for
Amazon to build its second home in
Queens.
