Hard to escape the conclusion that this whole thing was just a way to grab tax cuts for places where Amazon already has a presence.
Amazon Selects New York City and Northern Virginia for New Headquarters
41–50 of 279 posts
Re: Amazon Selects New York City and Northern Virginia for New Headquarters
#42As a New Yorker, I am super disappointed that they chose Long Island City. There were contenders where this stimulus could have been a paradigm shift. Instead, it's just a drop in the bucket for a city that is already growing recklessly. My vote was for Newark, personally. Plenty of office space; access to NJIT, Rutgers, and Princeton; and good public transit that connects directly into NYC. Bezos and co. could have…
Seattle residents send their condolences.
Re: Amazon Selects New York City and Northern Virginia for New Headquarters
#43> Long Island City is a mixed-use community where arts and industry intersect It's mostly empty warehouses, housing projects, and luxury condos. There's very little in terms of culture or even basic needs, like grocery stores. > Long Island City has some of the best transit access in New York City, with 8 subway lines, 13 bus lines, commuter rail, a bike-sharing service, and ferries serving the area Realistically it'…
If a lot of Amazon employees end up living in Manhattan, they'll be doing a reverse commute, which is probably a good thing for everyone.
As to LGA, remember that it can't have direct flights to the West Coast (e.g.: Seattle...) for historical reasons. Maybe this will help rectify the situation.
Re: Amazon Selects New York City and Northern Virginia for New Headquarters
#44> Long Island City is a mixed-use community where arts and industry intersect It's mostly empty warehouses, housing projects, and luxury condos. There's very little in terms of culture or even basic needs, like grocery stores. > Long Island City has some of the best transit access in New York City, with 8 subway lines, 13 bus lines, commuter rail, a bike-sharing service, and ferries serving the area Realistically it'…
I spend a lot of time passing through in this neighborhood, and can mostly confirm this.
In fact, about those luxury condos and housing projects… they're _very_ new, popping up within the past two years and more coming all the time. I’ve been wondering for years what kind of people make the sort of money to afford these places and would also _want_ to live in that area… now I wonder if this decision wasn't made long ago, and word was carefully leaked to various developers to get the housing ready.
It’s not enough to store 25,000 workers, but it’s a lot. Maybe I’m naive but I feel like the immediate area can contain this, with minimal spillover to Manhattan and Brooklyn. (Like, if the workers want to. The area is definitely not the kind of hipster chic or glamour chic or any chic that people come to New York for.)
Re: Amazon Selects New York City and Northern Virginia for New Headquarters
#45As a New Yorker, I am super disappointed that they chose Long Island City. There were contenders where this stimulus could have been a paradigm shift. Instead, it's just a drop in the bucket for a city that is already growing recklessly. My vote was for Newark, personally. Plenty of office space; access to NJIT, Rutgers, and Princeton; and good public transit that connects directly into NYC. Bezos and co. could have…
I was really hoping for Raleigh and/or Dallas. Instead, Amazon picked two places where the cost of living is worse than Seattle.
Re: Amazon Selects New York City and Northern Virginia for New Headquarters
#46Can't believe how many subsidies they got, to me it's a question of fairness, why should we subsidize them, but not others? I get that they are doing the community a service by creating high paying jobs, but there certainly have been negative sides to what they've done (gentrification, poor working conditions for many employees in their warehouses).
How is gentrification negative?
If you rent.
Re: Amazon Selects New York City and Northern Virginia for New Headquarters
#47As a New Yorker, I am super disappointed that they chose Long Island City. There were contenders where this stimulus could have been a paradigm shift. Instead, it's just a drop in the bucket for a city that is already growing recklessly. My vote was for Newark, personally. Plenty of office space; access to NJIT, Rutgers, and Princeton; and good public transit that connects directly into NYC. Bezos and co. could have…
I was really hoping for Raleigh and/or Dallas. Instead, Amazon picked two places where the cost of living is worse than Seattle.
Yeah, but some of the CEO's houses are in these two areas.
Re: Amazon Selects New York City and Northern Virginia for New Headquarters
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
The E/M/F/R tunnels are already some of the most congested, most delayed, least pleasant segments in the entire city. As much as I welcome Amazon's move, I don't envy the poor suckers who have to ride in and out of Queens.
Living in the west side rail yards, and commuting to LIC would be a very pleasant commute in the morning and not so bad during the afternoon. It is surprisingly convenient the largest private real estate project in the US is conviniently located to Amazon's new HQ.
I’d also look east of Long Island City. Probably cheaper than Manhattan. Pick a bad area that will gentrify.
The MTA will be able to run more trains once they modernized their signaling equipment.
They are using 100 year old equipment:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mta-why-has-the-nyc-subway-gone...
Re: Amazon Selects New York City and Northern Virginia for New Headquarters
#49> Long Island City is a mixed-use community where arts and industry intersect It's mostly empty warehouses, housing projects, and luxury condos. There's very little in terms of culture or even basic needs, like grocery stores. > Long Island City has some of the best transit access in New York City, with 8 subway lines, 13 bus lines, commuter rail, a bike-sharing service, and ferries serving the area Realistically it'…
> Realistically it's the densely overcrowded 7 train
The N is a 10 minute walk to most of Long Island City (source: used to take the N to Manhattan every day while living in LIC).
Re: Amazon Selects New York City and Northern Virginia for New Headquarters
#50Tax kickbacks of $48k/job in NY and $22k/job in VA wth average salary of $150k/yr. Also $325mil in NY and $23mil in VA for just occupying the space. All well below the projected billions in direct investment and tax amounts. Not sure whether worth it or not, but it's all around economic growth which I see as a good thing in general. We can argue about public funds and growing pains, but this problem is better than th…
> $48k/job in NY That is over 10 years, so is like $5k a year.
even then, assuming 15k jobs in New York is $75MM/yr, which is a lot of money.