The company will be opening its new 335,000-square-foot complex in a building near Hudson Yards, a high-end commercial and residential development of Manhattan’s west side, according to the Associated Press.
Word gets around fast, and the lease signing almost immediately renewed the debate over the previous deal Amazon had with New York City for a larger headquarters in the borough of Queens. In that deal, the company would have received nearly $3 billion in incentives.
Amazon pulled out of that deal after a tumultuous fight – with politicians and activists vigorously protesting the new Amazon HQ2 because they feared the company’s arrival would raise rents and push out less affluent New Yorkers, reports CBS New York.
Amazon won’t be receiving any of those benefits for its new office on 10th Avenue, which will open in 2021 and house more than 1,500 employees from its consumer and advertising teams. The company already has over 3,500 employees working in other New York City offices.
“We plan to continue to hire and grow organically across our 18 Tech Hubs, including New York City,” a company spokesperson said, according to CNN.
“Amazon is coming to New York, just as they always planned. Fortunately, we dodged a $3 billion bullet by not agreeing to their subsidy shakedown earlier this year. Now, we must enact reforms to our economic development programs to ensure no company can seek to take advantage of the public again,” Senate Deputy Leader Michael Gianaris said in a statement Friday.
The $25 billion complex in Midtown Manhattan is also home to CNN’s parent company, WarnerMedia, as well as L’Oreal USA, Wells Fargo Securities and Equinox. And Amazon will be joined by another big tech company – Facebook signed a lease for a 1.5 million square foot office space in the complex last month.
