Will Long Island City become home to Amazon’s second headquarters?
The city Economic Development Corp. thinks it could, and neighborhood leaders are backing the idea.
“I think it’s great news for Queens overall,” Pedro Gomez, president of the Court Square Civic Association, said in a telephone interview last Thursday. “The opportunity for work in the borough is a good one for the people of Long Island City and even beyond our neighborhood.”
The business district in the Queens community was named one of four possible locations to host Amazon’s HQ2 project in the EDC’s bid, submitted to the online giant Oct. 18, one day before the deadline. Midtown West, Brooklyn Tech Triangle and Lower Manhattan were named as three other spots the Seattle-based company could set up shop, according to the agency. Those business districts, and LIC, have the appropriate commercial space and are close to public transit, highways and airports, it said.
Amazon’s second HQ is expected to create 50,000 “good-paying jobs” and $5 billion in investments for the winning city.
New York is competing against Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Buffalo, Atlanta and dozens more in the bidding process — the company is expected to pick a location next year.
“The brightest minds and innovators want to live in New York,” Mayor de Blasio said in a letter to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. “The people who live and come here experience a quality of life unlike anywhere else, from our incomparable public spaces and cultural institutions to our dynamic neighborhoods.”
But on the same day as the city submitted its bid, de Blasio told people at a Brooklyn town hall not to buy items off websites like Amazon if “you love your local neighborhood stores — your bakeries, your cafÈs, your clothing stores, all these things — then you need to spend your money there and not at Starbucks and not at other alternative places.”
The EDC, in its application, called Long Island City, “a creative, mixed-use neighborhood with a rich legacy as the city’s industrial innovation center” that “sits at the nexus of multiple local and regional transportation networks …”
Gomez said public transit — specifically the subway system — is something that will have to be improved if Queens gets picked.
“The system is getting overburdened,” he said. “Transportation as a whole is going to be burdened by this … it’s definitely something that needs to be looked at.”
A specific site is not proposed in the submission, but the city says LIC has “over 13 million square feet of first-class real estate, at price points that compare favorably with commercial centers across the five boroughs.”
In a letter signed by elected officials from all five boroughs, the city boasts of its accessibility, affordability, infrastructure and sustainability.
“No city embodies the American traditions of innovation and creativity quite like New York City,” the letter states. “From Broadway, the Bronx Zoo and the Brooklyn Bridge, to Citi Field and the shores of Staten Island, New York City is a place where history is made every day.”
The missive was signed by LIC elected officials, including state Sen. Michael Gianaris (D-Astoria), Assemblywoman Cathy Nolan (D-Long Island City), Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn) and Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer (D-Sunnyside), along with Queens Borough President Melinda Katz.
“I am excited to see the New York City Economic Development Corporation recognize in their proposal what thousands of New Yorkers have been recognizing for years now: that Long Island City and Western Queens as a whole are among New York City’s most dynamic and innovative neighborhoods,” Van Bramer said in an emailed statement. “I am an enthusiastic supporter of the proposal, and of any plan to bring good paying jobs to my district. I think it is clear that Amazon HQ2 would be an ideal fit for Long Island City and for the entire borough of Queens. I look forward to working with the Economic Development Corporation in the months to come to support Long Island City’s proposal.”
Gomez, though supportive of the project overall, hopes the city “takes the need of residents and also the needs of a company like Amazon into consideration.”
The Governor’s Office is backing four submissions made throughout the state — including New York City’s — and promised Amazon unspecified “tax credits tied to potential job creation.”
