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This is factually inaccurate. Amazon was going to bring in a ton of high paying jobs that would have increased the net taxes collected immediately and forever. This would have been one of the best new providers of middle class and upper middle class jobs in a decade. Democrats and Republicans mostly agreed on the issue too, which is almost unheard of. Unfortunately the radical left wing of NYC politicians were able to scare off Amazon and everyone lost out. To reiterate, we were not talking about the minimum wage part time jobs that a Stadium brings. I would be more inclined to agree with you there.
Sorry, I don't buy that whole "net taxes collected" in future years argument. Businesses operations and expansions shouldn't need or get subsidized.
Amazon leasing a building in manhattan is not the same as spending billions to transform LIC. They were building a campus that also included a new school. This would have expanded construction jobs for years to come for example look at Barclays center/pacific/atlAntic yards
This is no way on the same level of commitment by amazon.
Apparently those jobs are coming in anyways without the large tax incentives.
1. The jobs that are coming are an order of magnitude smaller in number.
2. Incentives were tied to performance anyway (how many jobs Amazon would create), so those billions of dollars of tax incentives were only true if Amazon hired 25,000 people.
3. The jobs came to Manhattan instead of Queens. Development of the outer borough jobs is supposed to be the priority, not Midtown Manhattan at 39th and 5th avenue.
^ Yup, the city for awhile now wanted to decentralize the business/office hub in Manhattan to the outerboroughs so the LIC Amazon HQ would have been the centerpiece to that plan.
Also, congestion pricing in Manhattan is another way the city is saying we don't want anymore business in Manhattan because we will penalize you for coming into Manhattan during business hours so it's clear the city wants businesses to set up in the outerboroughs.
This is factually inaccurate. Amazon was going to bring in a ton of high paying jobs that would have increased the net taxes collected immediately and forever. This would have been one of the best new providers of middle class and upper middle class jobs in a decade. Democrats and Republicans mostly agreed on the issue too, which is almost unheard of. Unfortunately the radical left wing of NYC politicians were able to scare off Amazon and everyone lost out. To reiterate, we were not talking about the minimum wage part time jobs that a Stadium brings. I would be more inclined to agree with you there.
Amazon in its own words at both city council hearings said max 4K new jobs would be added to the city, and the average salary would hover around that neighborhoods current ami. the remainder of the reported 25K new jobs included state communities like west chester and new jersey suburbs - yet nyc/state would give out the sweetener while jersey received some of the benefit. Amazon would host job fairs at Queensbridge housing project - which I am pretty sure they weren't going to find their next Oracle Engineer (high paying job) through it but rather staff up its warehouse (low paying job) - on average the city/state would be paying 48K per job (25K as initially reported by amazon) so at the end of the day we would be paying for warehouse jobs not amazon.
Amazon's HQ deal fell through because they wanted a helipad in a city that has 3 other helipads.... it wasn't 'radical leftist' it was working people wondering why HQ needed to move part of a school for a helipad to operate up to a third of the year if HQ would be hiring locally.
I fail to see how moving to LIC would be trans-formative to a borough that is already over priced while other areas that are under developed would've served a better location.
There's a lot of greed in the original LIC deal by Amazon insiders that were gonna profit from the LIC location.
I don't think any boro president begging on their knees would make a difference because Amazon insiders already decided where they're gonna go to maximize their insider trading.
It sucked for many who shelled a ton to buy properties from Amazon insiders and they turn around and walked on the deal. That's what Amazon does in business, they always had to have the upper hand.
If anything, this shows that the original Amazon deal was screwing the city. The city gets actual jobs without coughing up a ridiculous incentive package--that's a win for us, not for them.
1. The jobs that are coming are an order of magnitude smaller in number.
2. Incentives were tied to performance anyway (how many jobs Amazon would create), so those billions of dollars of tax incentives were only true if Amazon hired 25,000 people.
3. The jobs came to Manhattan instead of Queens. Development of the outer borough jobs is supposed to be the priority, not Midtown Manhattan at 39th and 5th avenue.
I addressed some of this already, but I know I'm long-winded so it might've been missed.
1. The terms were 25,000 jobs within ten years of constructing the headquarters. It was not, as contended by another poster earlier, immediate. Headcount is between 5,000 and 6,000 for Amazon in the city already and this is for 4,000 more positions in one location though other locations are also being looked at. Will it be at or close to 25,000 in 10 years? I'm going to guess unless something drastic happens to Amazon (or the city), probably. If something drastic were to happen to Amazon though, they probably wouldn't reach that count anyhow even with the unified LIC location.
2. Yes, absolutely the incentives were tied to performance. I don't think that's a point of contention, though they were some posters who opposed the Amazon count who did not seem to quite understand how that works and thought it was all simply a giveaway which it isn't. I am not one of those posters.
3. I'm in agreement that an outer borough location is preferred to a Manhattan one(s) for various reasons such as better usage of existing transit which crush loads people into a peak direction. The unfortunate thing about the LIC location was that it doesn't really do that though I still think it's marginally better than a Manhattan one. I really wish the city and state had done the hard push for Jamaica, or the even more difficult one for Broadway Junction. Honestly, if it was put in one of those two neighborhoods with solely as-of-right incentives and a commitment from the city and state to invest in the neighborhood, then I would've been all for it.
New York City is too large for Amazon to ignore in terms of corporate presence. They already have many various other locations in NYC (warehouse, fulfillment, etc...) so sooner or later they are going to need some sort of corporate or whatever main office.
What the city and state loses out on is if Amazon spends their own money and does things as a private business should, then politicians lose whatever leverage to extract various goodies and or promises.
If Corey Johnson, AOC, BdeB or whoever come a knocking with calls or demands for inclusion, equality, hiring certain quotas of minorities... any of the intrusions into a business that seem to be standard these days, Amazon can tell them to go pound salt. They would be paying the same huge taxes any other businesses in this state has to dole out, so may or may not always want to play that game.
Google, Facebook and the other tech giants already with large HQ's here are rather civic minded, but bottom line is they do themselves first.
Going with the former L&T space or anywhere in Manhattan below 57th street makes far more sense. Having a HQ or whatever Amazon wants to call this proposed space located closer to GCT, Port Authority, Penn Station etc... means an easier commute for potential employees from the burbs. There is also fact amenities high income employees or whatever like are already in Manhattan.
Ok, so the building in Queens wont be built. Lots of construction job, construction suppliers opportunities lost, a neighborhood and park lost.
But looks like Jeff B may have his laugh if this goes thru
Try and stop that AOC and DeB (a/k/a Warren Wilhelm Jr.)
Unfortunately, the ultra-wealthy do tend to have the last laugh, no matter how detrimental it may be to others.
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