Residents are hoping Mayor Bill de Blasio can get his act together long enough for Amazon to find a home in NYC. The Seattle-based ecommerce giant, led by Jeff Bezos, is carefully considering a couple of extremely large spaces in Midtown Manhattan. Mayor de Blasio, however, has not gotten over Amazon’s slight to Long Island City, where the company scrapped plans to build HQ2. Instead of welcoming the new prospect, Hizzoner has said he feels “jaded” that Amazon is now choosing The Big Island of Manhattan after just walking away from the plans in Queens.
As reported by the NY Post, the tech behemoth is in negotiations with landlords of two new skyscrapers situated one block west of Penn Station, at One Manhattan West and its soon-to-be-completed sister project, Two Manhattan West. “You know we are very jaded now after having made a full agreement that I thought was a fair agreement that they just walked away with in the dead of night,” said de Blasio. “They have not spoken to me. They have not reached out to me, but if they do something on their own and it adds jobs, well, that’s fine, then,” he said, after hearing the report last week.
Amazon is reportedly eyeing 250,000 square feet of space to start, much less than the 4 million it was prepared to use in LIC. Notwithstanding, the company’s presence would bring thousands of high-paying jobs. Not to mention, it would also bring in an abundance of tax revenue— money that NYC could desperately use to rebuild crumbling infrastructure, roads and transportation.
“I and I think much of the community I work with welcome Amazon’s growth here with open arms. The kinds of jobs that we’ll see from Amazon’s increased presence — and from the increase of other tech companies large and small — are the jobs of the future,” said Julie Samuels, with the advocacy organization Tech: NYC, which represents 700 companies.
Mayor de Blasio, however, is taking a colder approach. He has already made clear that the company will not receive any help from the city if they chose to move to Manhattan’s West Side. “Look, if Amazon decides — as Google did and as many other tech firms have — that they’re going to expand their presence in New York City, that’s their choice,” de Blasio said last week. “It doesn’t surprise me at all, but again, they’re going to have to do it on their own,” he said.
