Why Amazon is Dropping Its NYC Headquarters

After months of pushback from local politicians and community leaders, e-Commerce king Amazon announced it’s canceling plans for a second headquarters in New York City.

In November, Amazon said it would build two new headquarters—one in the Long Island City neighborhood of Queens, New York, and another in Arlington, Virginia. The Queens facility would have added about 25,000 high-paying jobs to New York City, and Amazon would have spent billions of dollars on a new, four million square foot facility, the company said in an earlier press release.

Amazon conducted a year-long search among hundreds of U.S. cities for its new spaces.

Why critics opposed Amazon’s NY headquarters

Amazon would also have received billions of dollars in subsidies that would have come from city and state tax revenues. Critics argued that since Amazon is one of the wealthiest companies in the world, it didn’t really need the money.

Additionally, opponents of the new headquarters reportedly said the influx of highly-paid Amazon workers could have made local housing less affordable, and might have further burdened local transportation infrastructure.

Nearly 70% of New Yorkers favored building the new headquarters in Queens, Amazon said in a blog post on Thursday, February 14. A recent poll conducted by the Siena College Research Institute suggests that the percentage of New York State residents supporting Amazon’s new facility is closer to 56%.

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