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Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus (nytimes.com)

Posted by msmash on from the tussle-continues dept.

As expected, Amazon said on Thursday that it was canceling plans to build a corporate campus in New York City [The link may be paywalled; alternative source]. From a report: The company had planned to build a sprawling complex in Long Island City, Queens, in exchange for nearly $3 billion in state and city incentives. But the deal had run into fierce opposition from local lawmakers who criticized providing subsidies to one of the world's richest companies. Amazon said the deal would have created more than 25,000 jobs. Amazon's NYC educational investments will continue.
Amazon's statement: "After much thought and deliberation, we've decided not to move forward with our plans to build a headquarters for Amazon in Long Island City, Queens. For Amazon, the commitment to build a new headquarters requires positive, collaborative relationships with state and local elected officials who will be supportive over the long-term. While polls show that 70% of New Yorkers support our plans and investment, a number of state and local politicians have made it clear that they oppose our presence and will not work with us to build the type of relationships that are required to go forward with the project we and many others envisioned in Long Island City.

We are disappointed to have reached this conclusion -- we love New York, its incomparable dynamism, people, and culture -- and particularly the community of Long Island City, where we have gotten to know so many optimistic, forward-leaning community leaders, small business owners, and residents. There are currently over 5,000 Amazon employees in Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Staten Island, and we plan to continue growing these teams."

27 of 365 comments (clear)

  1. Good government management by Futurepower(R) · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Good!!! The governments should not provide subsidies. There should be a law against that.

    1. Re:Good government management by atrex · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Or, NYC could take that $3 Billion dollars and hire 25,000 workers with $50K annual salaries for two years to rebuild and modernize the city's subway system which will provide much greater and longer term economic benefit to the city than an Amazon office building.

    2. Re:Good government management by ranton · · Score: 2, Insightful

      And now some other city will give them what they want - and Long Island will be out of luck on this one.

      Out of luck? They were about to spend $120,000 per "new" job created, so it is far from guaranteed Long Island would have benefited. Long Island has a 3.8% unemployment rate, so I doubt it is hurting for new jobs. The New York City area is probably not hurting for businesses to locate there. Spending that $3 billion on more affordable housing would probably do far more good in attracting businesses by giving them more access to employees.

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      -- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
    3. Re: Good government management by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      It wasn't subsidies. There's an important distinction between being paid, and incentives that mean you pay less.

      One puts the onus of failure on the tax payer, while the other still requires the business to be successful.

      In their rush to be virtuous and socialist, New York forgot that we are, and will always be, a capitalist nation. Tens of thousands of New Yorkers lost a golden opportunity to make billions of dollars for themselves and their community.

      This is not something to celebrate.

    4. Re:Good government management by sdinfoserv · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Try and live in NYC on $50K.

    5. Re:Good government management by AmiMoJo · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Problem is it's not $3bn in cash they have handing over, it's $3bn in tax they are not going to collect.

      You can't pay people with tax you would have collected if Amazon had come to town.

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    6. Re: Good government management by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

      Actually NYC was turning into a sewer under Democrats. It was the Republicans that reversed that, cleaned up part of the city, brought crime down, etc. Now the new Democrats are reversing that and piss, shit and crime are becoming more common once again. On the plus side we have all sorts of politically correct pronouncements.

    7. Re:Good government management by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      They were never spending $3B. They were refunding $3B worth of the taxes Amazon would have paid. Too many stupid people commenting on something they don't understand.

    8. Re: Good government management by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 4, Insightful

      There's an important distinction between being paid, and incentives that mean you pay less.

      There is indeed. But both are wrong. There should be equality before the law, even for businesses. One business should not be taxed to fund tax breaks for another "more worthy" business.

      In their rush to be virtuous and socialist,

      Only some deal opponents were socialists like AOC, who objected to the handouts to a rich company, although she doesn't object to handouts in principle. But many more objectors are free market capitalists, who don't think the government should be "picking winners". It was an alliance of left and right, standing together to oppose corporate welfare.

      This is not something to celebrate.

      Yes it is. Hopefully other locales will learn a lesson from this, and these corrupt handouts can stop.

    9. Re:Good government management by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Keep in mind most of those amazon jobs would have been for a LOT LESS than $50k. They too would not have been able to live in nyc.

    10. Re:Good government management by Deathlizard · · Score: 3, Insightful

      That incentive was savings on tax revenue Amazon would have paid if they built in the area.

      Since Amazon isn't coming to the area, not only are they out any tax revenue that Amazon would have generated, but any potential Tax revenue generated by the hired employees.

      Unless they find another 3 billion dollar revenue generator, they get nothing but what the current property generates. probably a few million tops.

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    11. Re:Good government management by ranton · · Score: 3, Insightful

      They were never spending $3B. They were refunding $3B worth of the taxes Amazon would have paid. Too many stupid people commenting on something they don't understand.

      Try to get your facts right before calling others stupid. New York City and New York State were providing a combination of tax credits, grants, and other assistance such as shared spending for infrastructure projects. It was certainly not $3B of just tax breaks. Tax breaks certainly are preferred over grants, since less money is lost if the jobs don't materialize and less money is spent up front, but in the end it is still revenue lost for spending elsewhere.

      In some Midwest town which is hurting for jobs, the argument that these Amazon jobs would be "net new" jobs is more compelling. But New York city has little problem attracting jobs; it has more problems funding infrastructure problems or offering affordable housing. The Amazon deal certainly could have been a good thing overall for New York (I originally said it just wasn't a guarantee Long Island would benefit), but the deal itself left a lot to be desired. Considering Maryland offered $6.5 billion more in incentives than Virginia at a location 20 miles away, but still lost, shows how little Amazon was using these incentives in its decision to locate their headquarters.

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      -- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
    12. Re:Good government management by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Just a quick distinction.This was not Long Island, it's Long Island City, in Queens, not on Long Island. Probably not important to non-New Yorkers, but LIC is a 20 minute train ride from Manhattan, Long Island is longgggg train or car ride.

  2. Place it where they need it by Only+Time+Will+Tell · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I've always said if Amazon wants to be really beneficial and transformational, place their HQ2 in a rust-belt city. NYC is fine, they are millions of jobs and a high cost of living. Places like Cleveland, Indianapolis, Pittsburg, etc. need the jobs and would be very supportive to Amazon.

    1. Re:Place it where they need it by PolygamousRanchKid+ · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I've always said if Amazon wants to be really beneficial and transformational, place their HQ2 in a rust-belt city.

      Bezos doesn't own a home in a rust-belt city. Unlike Washington, DC or NYC.

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  3. Idiots! by bobbied · · Score: 1, Insightful

    And no, I'm not identifying who...

    Well, what did you THINK would happen? Idiots..

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    1. Re: Idiots! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      They thought they would take advantage of New Yorkers, the toughest, meanest, shit-throwing bilkers in the country.

      Not any more.

  4. FoxConned by sdinfoserv · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Citizens figured out that skyrocketing housing prices resulting in increased homeless, gentrification, and billions in tax payer payola (aka "incentives" https://www.bizjournals.com/ne... ) just isn't worth it.
    Good for them.

  5. Re:good by squiggleslash · · Score: 4, Insightful

    NYC will do just fine. It absolutely never needed Amazon, and Amazon would have caused problems for it (it's expensive enough to live there as it is due to the national shortage of decent urban space), not solved anything.

    As far as the notion that it was right for a massive business to punish a city because its government didn't want to subsidize it, I'm truly disgusted that anyone would suggest such a thing. I'd like to see less subsidies to corporate consumers in general (Amazon is a corporate consumer, a user, not provider, of infrastructure, for example), and for cities across the country to stop competing with one another on who can flush their local economies down the toilet as quickly as possible just to attract a large employer who'll cost local taxpayers more than they bring in.

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  6. NOT giving Amazon money, taking less tax revenue by drnb · · Score: 1, Insightful

    But they can't afford to give amazon $3 billion in tax breaks

    They are not giving Amazon money, they are receiving less tax revenue. Now they receive zero tax revenue. That is a net loss of revenue.

  7. There was NO GIVEAWAY of money by drnb · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It's honestly anti billion dollar government giveaways. ... Most of the opposition is about giving away billions of dollars in tax credits to a company that already has billions of dollars!

    There was no giveaway of money, no money was leaving the pockets of NYC government. What Amazon was getting was a lower tax rate, gov't revenues would be lowered. But now the government's revenues will be zero. That is a net loss for government. That was an awfully expensive political statement to make.

    1. Re:There was NO GIVEAWAY of money by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Granting the tax break is far, far more expensive.

      If the amazon deal is so lucrative, why don't we just give that tax break to every single company that operates in the city? The simple answer is because amazon, and any other company present, costs the city money. Infrastructure has to be maintained, city services have to be provided, etc. All that shit costs money.

      If the taxes they collect with the deal aren't enough to cover the expenses of Amazon, then you're just creating a ponzi scheme, with other people stuck picking up the tab.

  8. Most do by rsilvergun · · Score: 1, Insightful

    if the median income is anything to go by.

    Of course it's down $4k since 2009. The working class never did recover from 2008. And best of all we're heading into another (self inflicted) recession. Hooray.

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  9. Re:I bet it's also the new tax law effect by blahbooboo · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Thank god, it should have never existed. It just means those in states with no or low income tax are subsidizing those that live in places like NYC or CA. Now maybe those people will realize how much all their taxed out the ass govt programs cost.

    Too simplistic thinking on your part. The high tax states contribute far more to the federal tax budget that the states with no or low state income taxes. For example, NY sends $38 billion more to the federal government than it gets back.

  10. Re:I bet it's also the new tax law effect by blahbooboo · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Here is a recent write up

    https://www.ny.gov/programs/ta...

    the law disproportionately hurts “donor states,” like New York, which already contributes $48 billion more annually to the federal government than it gets back. You're no income tax states that you say are subsidizing high tax are NOT, in fact they are sucking down from the fed gov more than they contribute.

  11. There were no "conservatives" involved by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Those subsidies were offered up by Democrats Andrew Cuomo and Bill De Blasio.

    Jeff Bezos gives money to Democratic candidates, not Republicans.

    Where are the "conservatives" in the story?

  12. Re:A rust belt city doesn't have tons of money by DigiShaman · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The "Green New Deal" was a Communist Manifesto for America. There was nothing remotely intelligent about it other than a trial balloon to gauge just how really stupid the average American is to buy into it. Politically, it's a diabolical genius power-grab ploy!!!

    Now put down the pom poms.

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