Amazon picks Long Island City for a major new campus
The company announced that Queens would host one of two new headquarters, promising thousands of jobs in exchange for billions in incentives.
Amazon announced on Tuesday that it had chosen Long Island City in Queens as the site of a major new corporate campus, one of two "second headquarters" the company would build, promising some 25,000 jobs over a decade in exchange for nearly $3 billion in state and city incentives.
The decision capped a year-long national search that had cities across the country competing fiercely for the prize. Governor Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio hailed the deal as a transformative win that would cement New York's status as a technology hub and bring high-paying jobs and tax revenue.
But the announcement immediately drew fierce opposition from some local officials, labour groups and residents, who objected to the scale of the subsidies handed to one of the world's most valuable companies, and who warned of strain on housing, schools and the already overcrowded subway in the area.
Critics questioned why a company run by the world's richest man needed public money at all, and bristled at the secretive, top-down way the deal had been struck without community input. Supporters countered that the investment and jobs would more than pay for themselves.
The clash set the stage for months of contentious debate over the project, pitting the city's economic development ambitions against a growing backlash over inequality and corporate power — a fight whose outcome would surprise almost everyone.