Amazon abruptly abandoned plans Thursday for a big new headquarters in New York that would have brought 25,000 jobs to the city, reversing course after socialist politicians and activists objected to the nearly $3 billion in tax breaks promised to entire the company to move in.
“We are disappointed to have reached this conclusion — we love New York,” the online giant said in a blog post, adding that it already has 5,000 employees in the city and plans to increase that number. The move would have raised $27.5 billion in tax revenue for New York over 25 years, economists said.
The stunning withdrawal was a serious blow to Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio, Democrats who had lobbied intensely to land the project, competing fiercely against more than 200 other metropolitan areas across the continent that were practically tripping over each other to offer incentives to Amazon.
All that work… undone by the far-left.
Amazon announced in November that it had chosen the Long Island City neighborhood in Queens for one of two new headquarters, with the other in northern Virginia. The company had planned to spend $2.5 billion building its new New York City office.
Amazon said it does not plan to look for another headquarters location at this time and will continue with its plans to build new offices in Arlington, Virginia, and Nashville, Tennessee. The Arlington campus is expected to be the same size as the New York one, with 25,000 employees. The Nashville office is expected to have 5,000.
Liberal City Council members scheduled hearings at which they grilled Amazon officials about the company’s labor practices, its contract with Immigration and Customs Enforcement to provide facial recognition technology and other issues.
“This is proof of why it is so important to have an inclusive and transparent process from the beginning,” said New York Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, a Democrat.
A Quinnipiac University poll released in December found New York City voters supported having an Amazon headquarters 57 percent to 26 percent. Construction-industry groups had urged the public and officials to get behind a plan.
The Associated Press contributed to this article