It took Amazon nearly a year to select the two cities that would house its second, split-up North American headquarters, and only three months for one of those deals—with New York City—to fall apart.
The e-commerce giant, whose CEO is the richest man in the world, announced (on Valentine’s Day, no less) that thanks to the fierce backlash to its HQ2 plans, it would no longer bring a new corporate campus—and 25,000 planned jobs—to Long Island City.
In the aftermath of the company’s decision, plenty of people are playing the blame game: Some see Amazon as the problem; others blame the politicians (at both the city and state level) who opposed the deal; and others see the misconceptions about the deal (such as how the incentives promised to Amazon would be doled out) as the problem.
But how did we get here? Looking back at the brief history of the HQ2 deal, there are clues that it wasn’t going to be an easy win for the e-commerce giant. Check that all out below.
September 7, 2017
Amazon announced that it will build a second, 50,000-employee strong headquarters, and will accept proposals from cities who are interested in welcoming Jeff Bezos & Co. The tech giant estimates that it’ll cost about $5 billion to build the new HQ2, as it’s quickly dubbed. New York says it’ll throw its hat in the ring, with the state’s economic development arm saying it will do “everything we can” to win Amazon’s attention.
September 27, 2017
After soliciting proposals, New York City’s Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) announced that 23 separate neighborhoods have made the case for why they should become HQ2’s home.
October 18, 2017
The day before bids for HQ2 are due, New York City landmarks—including One World Trade Center and the Empire State building—light up in so-called “Amazon Orange.” It’s one of the less ridiculous gimmicks municipalities do to try and woo Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos.
October 19, 2017
Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio announce that the city has submitted its HQ2 bid, naming four different areas—Long Island City, the Financial District, Midtown West, and the “Brooklyn Tech Triangle” (an area comprising Downtown Brooklyn, Dumbo, and the Brooklyn Navy Yard)—as possible sites. “The case for New York City is simple: we are the global capital of commerce, culture and innovation,” de Blasio said in a letter to Bezos.
January 18, 2018
After a few quiet months, Amazon announces that it has selected 20 finalist cities for HQ2, including New York City and Newark, NJ. They’re in competition with other major municipalities like Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C.; the list also includes some outliers, including Indianapolis and Montgomery County, MD.
At the same time, a group of social justice advocates—encompassing members from groups like Make the Road New York and Showing Up for Racial Justice, among others—make their opposition known, writing an open letter that states, in part, “if Amazon is going to continue to grow its operations across New York City and State, it must improve its business model and its treatment of communities and workers.”
January 24, 2018
A former Battery Park City official unveiled a modest HQ2 proposal: build it on landfill near that lower Manhattan neighborhood. Charles J. Urstadt says that by using fill to extend Battery Park City to the north, the city could create a new 60-acre parcel for Amazon. “This plan would create a sylvan, campus-like blank slate—all overlooking the Hudson River—on which Amazon could design its own ideal headquarters,” he claims. (It does not end up becoming a reality.)
November 4, 2018
Amazon spends the better part of the year meeting with officials in cities across the U.S., and in November, the Wall Street Journal reported that New York City is among the final-final contenders. The company is reportedly scoping out Long Island City as the top NYC site, which the city touted for its “13 million square feet of first-class real estate,” along with its proximity to airports, transit lines, and cultural institutions.
November 5, 2018
Andrew “Amazon” Cuomo is forever immortalized, as the New York governor crows that he’ll “change his name … if that’s what it takes.”
November 9, 2018
As the rumors of HQ2’s imminent arrival in NYC intensify, Crain’s reported that the company intends to bypass the city’s uniform land use review procedure (ULURP)—a cumbersome process, but one that gives the City Council and other local pols some oversight for major developments.
At the same time, there are additional rumors that a waterfront site owned by Plaxall is in the running for Amazon’s campus. The site was previously earmarked for a rezoning, allowing for the creation of housing, schools, and other public benefits.
November 13, 2018
The rumors become reality when Amazon announces that it will split H2 between two areas: Long Island City, and the neighborhood of Crystal City in Arlington, VA. While the full details of the deal weren’t immediately made clear, the city and state promise at least $1.7 billion in economic incentives to sweeten the deal for the tech giant.
The backlash began quickly; newly elected New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is among those who question the deal, namely the tax breaks and grants Amazon will receive to move to NYC.
November 14, 2018
The first of many protests against HQ2 is held in Long Island City, with members of advocacy groups, unions, and elected officials all in attendance. Two local pols who’d previously supported the deal—City Council member Jimmy van Bramer, and State Senator Michael Gianaris—attend, foreshadowing the larger fight to come.
“When Jeff Bezos needed $3 billion, the governor and the mayor found it sure damn quick,” van Bramer said during the rally. “The governor and the mayor conspired secretly to cut a deal with Jeff Bezos to the exclusion of everyone else. This is the ultimate case of ‘three men in a room.’”
November 19, 2018
The backlash to the backlash begins: Cuomo published an “op-ed” on his official website, ostensibly to lay out his case for why the HQ2 deal is good for New York, but with a healthy heaping of scorn for those who’ve criticized the deal. Deputy Mayor Alicia Glen gave an interview to New York in which she argued that the deal was, in fact, fair and democratic (despite the lack of input from city officials, as you’d get with a ULURP). And urbanists, including New York architecture critic Justin Davidson and architect Vishaan Chakrabarti, defend the deal as good for New York City.
November 20, 2018
The Wall Street Journal reported that a handful of Amazon employees purchased condos in Long Island City before the HQ2 deal was made public, giving its critics even more fodder that it would drive up home prices and real estate speculation in the neighborhood.
December 11, 2018
The city’s HQ2 bid is made public on a website (since taken down) published by the NYCEDC. And it’s a doozy: Governors Island is pitched as a retreat for Amazon employees, Milton Glaser’s famous “I ❤️ NY” logo is given a makeover, and then there are the renderings:
That same day, de Blasio and Cuomo announce the formation of a community advisory committee that will solicit input from locals and area stakeholders on the HQ2 deal. The 45-member group was due to have its first meeting in January. (Welp.)
December 13, 2018
The New York City Council held the first of two hearings with a panel of Amazon officials and reps from the NYCEDC. The meeting was, unsurprisingly, heated; opponents packed the gallery and unfurled a banner that said “NO TO AMAZON.” Meanwhile, council members interrogated the panel about everything from the promised tax breaks to the rumored helipad at the HQ2 site. Ultimately, though, it was “less about oversight than venting—a chance for both sides to stake out their positions, ask ridiculous questions, and give ridiculous answers,” as Dave Colon reported.
“If you’re proud of the deal, if you’re proud of coming to new York City, you should want to answer every question New Yorkers have,” City Council Speaker Corey Johnson told the panel. “It should not be a two-step tango to meet with us.” (Foreshadowing again.)
December 18, 2018
StreetEasy released a report showing a spike in Long Island City home prices in the five weeks following the HQ2 announcement. After a slow October, more than 18 percent of homes on the market increased their prices.
December 20, 2018
The backlash grows stronger: Three City Council members—van Bramer, Brad Lander, and Jumaane Williams—introduced legislation that sought to “prohibit New York City from signing such non-disclosure agreements in any future economic development deals, preventing the secret dissemination of proprietary city information.” The bill took aim at the “Hunger Games-style bidding process” that Amazon used to extract information from the cities that submitted proposals, while silencing those who participated in it.
December 27, 2018
City Comptroller Scott Stringer asked the NYCEDC to submit specific information that would help him fact check the assertion that Amazon’s Long Island City development would provide a 9-to-1 return on investment, as well as breakdowns on the refundable tax credits Amazon stands to gain through the Relocation and Employment Assistance Program (REAP) and the Industrial and Commercial Abatement Program (ICAP).
January 5, 2019
Amazon runs ads in the New York Daily News and the New York Post touting the project’s benefits for the city; fliers hoping to accomplish the same goals are also mailed to Queens residents. “We want to make sure New Yorkers know the details of our investment and how it benefits them,” an Amazon spokesperson told Curbed at the time.
The fliers are not universally well-received, however:
You know exactly where you can put this, @amazon. #astoria #queens #lic #noAmazonNYC #stayout pic.twitter.com/MqPi8INa09
— vermeerish (@vermeerish) January 8, 2019
January 30, 2019
The City Council held its second hearing with NYCEDC and Amazon reps, and it goes no better than the first one. As we reported, “Council members blasted the officials with a laundry list of concerns including Amazon’s union opposition, its investment in the city, and accusations that city and state officials failed to accurately calculate the costs of bringing the conglomerate to Long Island City.”
During the hearing, it’s revealed that Amazon could receive another $987 million from the city in the form of tax breaks (although the company did reveal that it would not take advantage of the fact that the area in which HQ2 was set to land was designated an “opportunity zone” under a new tax law). At one point, council speaker Corey Johnson asked, “Why do you need our money?,” echoing protestors who were both in and outside the council chambers that day.
February 4, 2019
The project was dealt a blow by the New York state Senate: Majority leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins nominated Michael Gianaris—who, by this point, had become a vociferous opponent of the deal—to the Public Authorities Control Board, a five-member committee with veto power over the HQ2 deal. The move was widely seen as the state Senate’s attempt to exert some control over the deal, with Cuomo’s camp none too pleased by the appointment. (Cuomo would have had the power to veto Gianaris’s seat, however.)
February 6, 2019
The Amazon HQ2 battle became a talking point in the race for New York City’s public advocate. Many of the more than 15 candidates for the position come out against the deal; during the first televised debate, several hopefuls—including former City Council speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, and current council member Jumaane Williams—blasted the deal. New York state Assembly member Ron Kim, meanwhile, uses his #NoAmazon stance as a talking point in his own mailers—which began to land in mailboxes the day the deal was called off.
February 7, 2019
Gianaris told Fast Company that he’s sending his own fliers decrying the HQ2 deal as a corrective to what he calls Amazon’s “misinformation campaign.” The flier took a red pen to Amazon’s own mailers, and encouraged people to tell Bezos to “stay in Seattle.”
“Whatever it takes, I’m going to make sure that the people of this community are fully educated and aware of what’s happening and not going to fall for Amazon’s propaganda,” Gianaris told Fast Company. (Foreshadowing, once again.)
February 8, 2019
The first rumblings of trouble in paradise begin: The Washington Post—which is owned by Bezos—reported that Amazon was now reconsidering its plans to bring HQ2 to NYC. “The question is whether it’s worth it if the politicians in New York don’t want the project, especially with how people in Virginia and Nashville have been so welcoming,” one of the Post’s unnamed sources said. Cuomo immediately goes on the defensive, stating that “If Amazon does not come to New York it’s because of the political opposition.”
February 12, 2019
Pro-HQ2 voices attempted to bring attention to the project’s supporters, holding a rally near the Queensbridge Houses in Long Island City to make it clear that there are New Yorkers who’d welcome Amazon with open arms. “We have a cadre of residents that are standing behind us; all of which understand the potential of development of our communities,” Bishop Mitchell Taylor, one of the deal’s staunch defenders, said during the rally. “We need to speak to them and not allow people coming from outside of our community to speak for us. You can’t speak for us.”
That same day, Siena College released the results of a poll showing that 58 percent of registered New York City voters were for the HQ2 deal, while 35 percent were against it.
February 14, 2019
Everything fell apart on Valentine’s Day: Amazon announced that it had withdrawn its HQ2 offer, stating that it requires “positive, collaborative relationships with state and local elected officials who will be supportive over the long-term”—essentially confirming that despite seemingly broad public approval, the lack of fealty from local politicians made working here unattractive. Opponents of the deal celebrated in Queens, though some hecklers did make an appearance.
The reactions came swiftly, but the responses from Cuomo and de Blasio were especially notable: The former blamed “a small group of politicians [who] put their own narrow political interests above their community.” The latter seemed to blame Amazon, stating that “[w]e 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.”
Among the many questions raised by the company’s abrupt about-face is what will happen to the site at Anable Basin, owned by Plaxall, that had been selected for the HQ2 campus.
February 15, 2019
The worst take so far on the Amazon snafu comes courtesy of David Lichtenstein, CEO of Lightstone Group, who said that the cancelation of the deal was “the worst day for NYC since 9/11 … except this time, the terrorists were elected,” according to the Real Deal.
February 16, 2019
De Blasio pens an op-ed for the New York Times that blames Amazon for its unwillingness to work with New York on a way forward for HQ2. In it, he noted that he “share[s] the frustration about corporate America” that drove many of the deal’s opponents; he also said the dog-and-pony show that was the HQ2 bidding process “exemplified that injustice,” despite participating in said process himself. The trade-off—25,000 new jobs, a possible $27 billion in tax revenue—was too desirable to resist.
But, he concludes, “We just witnessed another example of what the concentration of power in the hands of huge corporations leaves in its wake. Let’s change the rules before the next corporation tries to divide and conquer.”
Additional reporting by Zoe Rosenberg and Caroline Spivack.
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