Amazon is making a comeback in New York.
However, the company’s new office in Manhattan will only house over 1,500 employees—far less than the now-defunct plans for a new headquarters in Queens that promised 25,000 jobs over the next 15 years.
“This is crumbs from the table compared to a feast … This is nothing like the opportunity that we lost,” said Governor Andrew Cuomo (D.) at an unrelated press conference on Dec. 7.
On Valentines Day, Amazon cancelled its plan for the Queens project due to pushback from politicians such as Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D–N.Y.).
The congresswoman railed against the deal because the city and state offered up to $3 billion dollars in tax incentives to Amazon. She claimed that those incentives would have been a cost to the public.
Responding to news of the Manhattan office going ahead, Ocasio-Cortez said on Twitter: “Won’t you look at that: Amazon is coming to NYC anyway – *without* requiring the public to finance shady deals.”
Me waiting on the haters to apologize after we were proven right on Amazon and saved the public billions https://t.co/AC64pG0nZI pic.twitter.com/xzCepkX4AV
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) December 6, 2019
But some are saying this wasn’t a win for the public.
“Look at it this way, what is costing the public to not have the other 24,500 or 23,500 jobs?” said conservative commentator and Radio Host Rich Valdes. “To me, that’s the real cost on the public.”
A Sienna poll found that two out of three New Yorkers said Amazon’s withdrawal was bad. Most of them also supported the $3B tax incentives that were only to be granted after Amazon created 25,000 jobs.
Amazon didn’t specify how many new positions it would create at its new tech hub. The hub is set to open in 2021.
