Amazon drops plans for New York headquarters

A man runs along the waterfront in Queens on Nov. 14, 2018. 

A man runs along the waterfront in Queens on Nov. 14, 2018. "After much thought and deliberation, we've decided not to move forward with our plans to build a headquarters for Amazon in Long Island City, Queens," Amazon said in a press release. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

Updated at 1:57 p.m. ET

Amazon will no longer build new headquarters in New York City after weeks of local politicians, union leaders and community organizers protesting the financial incentives promised to one of the world’s most valuable companies.

The decision to abandon the planned New York HQ is a big reversal of its much-hyped decision to build a campus in Queens after a highly publicized nationwide search that lasted over a year.

On Thursday, an Amazon spokeswoman told NPR that the company plans no further negotiations with city and state officials in New York, where the firm has faced scathing criticism in recent City Council hearings. One key issue was the almost $3 billion in state and city tax incentives Amazon was slated to receive in exchange for creating some 25,000 jobs.

Local union leaders had organized protests against the company accusing it of anti-union behavior. Also, the state’s Senate leader recently nominated an ardent critic of Amazon’s deal to the state board that had control over Amazon’s plan for Queens.

“A number of state and local politicians have made it clear that they oppose our presence and will not work with us to build the type of relationships that are required to go forward with the project we and many others envisioned in Long Island City,” the company added, citing a recent poll it had commissioned showing that the majority of New Yorkers supported Amazon’s presence.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said Amazon was throwing away an opportunity by pulling out of the deal.

“You have to be tough to make it in New York City,” he tweeted. “We gave Amazon the opportunity to be a good neighbor and do business in the greatest city in the world. Instead of working with the community, Amazon threw away that opportunity.

De Blasio added, “We have the best talent in the world and every day we are growing a stronger and fairer economy for everyone. If Amazon can’t recognize what that’s worth, its competitors will.”

Amazon said it will not search for a new location for another HQ. This leaves the company with its main headquarters in Seattle and a second one planned for Northern Virginia.

“We do not intend to reopen the HQ2 search at this time,” Amazon said. “We will proceed as planned in Northern Virginia and Nashville, and we will continue to hire and grow across our 17 corporate offices and tech hubs in the U.S. and Canada.”

(Note: Amazon is one of NPR’s financial supporters.)

A union official criticized Amazon for the way it handled the New York headquarters plan.

“Rather than addressing the legitimate concerns that have been raised by many New Yorkers Amazon says you do it our way or not at all, we will not even consider the concerns of New Yorkers — that’s not what a responsible business would do,” Chelsea Connor, communications director for the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, said in a statement.

Rebecca Kolins Givan, an associate professor in the Rutgers School of Management and Labor Relations, said the deal’s collapse “may have been the inevitable result of the notoriously anti-union Amazon attempting to extract lucrative incentives from taxpayers in the most unionized large city in the state. Community organizers and unions worked with city lawmakers to let Amazon know that they couldn’t play by their usual anti-union rules in New York City.”

Amazon’s surprise decision to create two new headquarters locations followed a much-hyped, Olympic-style search. In all, 238 locations had submitted bids hoping to woo Amazon during the fall of 2017.

Copyright 2019 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

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