Finally!!! Yay!!! So much news today!
Queens? Sounds like Trump’s gonna cash in on that.
A great, heaving sigh of relief was heard everywhere except for NYC and NoVA.
I don’t remember ever seeing such universal disagreement between city leadership and city population, across such a wide range of regions and metropolitan areas. Bringing in jobs is generally good! But bringing in a bunch of outrageously-waged jobs which are designed to milk new compsci graduates dry, pricing out the locals and refilling the bone-meal-pits with fresh grads when the last set cash out with stock options… not so sure that’s as healthy.
As a Virginian, I say Thank You, Amazon. I’m sure Donald will tweet out a brag (for himself, that is) later today.
Boy, Detroit sure could have used this, but it, apparently, was never really in the running.
Yes sir. I work in Sunnyside, Queens and I can tell you from what I have directly seen that western Queens has been part of Ground Zero for excessive, over development (the other part of that is northern Brooklyn of which western Queens is just an extension). If it brings in significant jobs, that’s great. If it ends up continuing to push out longtime residents of the area and jacks up the already staggering price of real estate here, it’s just a nightmare.
ETA: upstate NY could have really used this as well.
Damn. Well, fellow New Yorkers, now we can kiss our tax-free Amazon shopping good-bye.
So glad I have a NewEgg account.
My only question involves their splitting HQ2 between two cities, that are relatively close together?
I know Bezos has ties to DC, but it seems like also having a midcontinent location (Dallas, Chicago, etc) instead of two on the east coast would make more sense?
Guess this is why I’m not a multi-billionaire…
By locating major white-collar job sites in NoVA and NYC, Bezos can seek to buy have the ears of as many as ten local Senators.
Not that I’m a cynic or anything.
Me? I’d say you’re a Prime candidate for being a cynic…
He’s also clearly looking for a certain demographic for his workers and it’s not so much in the Midwest and clearly not in the South.
Amazon is the largest employer in the City of Seattle -44,ooo. There was speculation that the company would transfer some of those folks to the new HQ2s but per this morning’s Seattle Times the company expects to employ 55,000 in a couple of years. The growth of Amazon put tremendous strain on housing affordability, traffic,schools, you name it. It will be interesting to see what tax breaks have been negotiated. The company grew to it’s current size without the City of Seattle giving away anything. I wish it had gone to a Midwest city but good luck to both sites because Amazonians are a mixed blessing.
@brooklyndweller Yes to demographics. It had to be an LGBTQ friendly and environmentally conscious.
No need to be a cynic. One only has to look at the entire record of how Bezos conducts his business. Outside Goldman, he simply is the most malign Corporate Sociopath that exists today. He almost singularly is now responsible for so much of the economic ills infecting our economy.
I wonder if we will ever find out about the Tax Payer subsidies he will have extorted in his narcissistic quest needed to prop up his Amazon. For if it weren’t for all his Tax advoidance and Tax subsidies from the very beginning, Amazon would have gone out of business long ago. Hence his never ending need for his Tax subsidies.
He is a very calculating man in his ability to be run his business in the most parasitic manner possible. And we will all suffer as a result.
woah!!! am so glad they didn’t come to FLORIDA…now maybe all those NORTHERNERS will move back… we have enough low-wage jobs.
Crystal City in DC is another area where traffic is terrible on a good day. It’s just south of the Pentagon and the city gives you the impression of being build around I-395 - the primary route from Virginia and points south to Washington DC.
What I don’t understand is why choose to build in high cost, high density, high traffic areas when these jobs have nothing to do with warehouse facilities. They could have easily located in the rust belt or other economically-disadvantaged areas and used technologies to communicate worldwide.
I have seen various tax rebate figures for these HQ-
NYC at 800M to 1800M
VA at 500M to 800M
Business Insider at 25,000 jobs for both, paid over the next 10-15 years.
$48,000 of state subsidy per employee NYC.
$22,000 per employee the next 12 years VA.
Nashville TN distribution center (supposedly 5K jobs) at $100M seems to be solid at $200/job. Cheap!
Well, they have upped the minimum wage, effective Nov 1 to $15/hr, but they are a predatory company by most accounts. Full disclosure: I am a Prime member.