Amazon is headed to Queens. After greater than yr of silent negotiations, the corporate lastly landed on the winners of its second North American headquarters. The brand new HQ2 shall be divided into two websites: the newly-minted Nationwide Touchdown space of Arlington, Virginia, and Lengthy Island Metropolis, Queens.
A mere hours after the announcement was made, Citigroup revealed that it was handing over area in a 50-story workplace constructing to make means for the retail big. The tower, often known as One Court docket Sq., has grow to be an iconic fixture of the Lengthy Island Metropolis skyline, because of its huge top and “Citi” emblem, which is seen from Manhattan alongside the East River.
Learn extra: Amazon is headed to New York Metropolis — listed here are the neighborhoods that would begin swelling with HQ2 staff
Beginning subsequent yr, Citigroup will start shifting 1,100 staff out of the workplace tower, liberating up a million sq. ft of actual property for Amazon. The displaced staff will transfer to alternate areas in Lengthy Island Metropolis or switch to Citigroup’s international headquarters in Tribeca. Amazon will introduce 700 staff within the subsequent yr, adopted by 2,200 staff in 2020.
In keeping with Constantine Valhouli, the pinnacle of analysis for NeighborhoodX, the constructing is a “pure selection” for Amazon, given its dominance and top. Amazon’s transfer, he stated, might symbolize the rising takeover of West Coast expertise firms in New York Metropolis, the place main workplace towers have lengthy been occupied by monetary corporations.
However the transfer is simply non permanent. Over the subsequent ten years, Amazon will construct a four million-square-foot headquarters to deal with its 25,000 new staff. From there, the corporate will increase the mission to round eight million sq. ft, accommodating an extra 15,000 staff.
Your complete growth is ready to be full in 15 years, at which level Amazon could have spent $3.7 billion on the mission.
That is a hefty price ticket, on condition that the corporate’s parallel growth in Arlington. Building on the four million-square-foot headquarters, often known as Nationwide Touchdown, is set to start in 2019.
Although Amazon hasn’t revealed too many particulars about its Lengthy Island Metropolis headquarters, the corporate plans to occupy the area alongside the Anable Basin, a synthetic inlet separating Queens from Brooklyn.
In a memorandum of understanding, New York’s Empire State Improvement stated the brand new web site would come with open public area, group services, artist workspaces, expertise accelerator area, and room for a public college.
To hold out this imaginative and prescient, Amazon must work with the proprietor of the land, Plaxall, which just lately proposed its personal concepts for a mixed-used district alongside the waterfront. Its 2017 proposal included flood resiliency measures and plans to protect the neighborhood’s industrial character.
Although Plaxall and Amazon might share the same wish-list, there’s lots left to find out, together with the mission timeline, destiny of current companies, and site of Jeff Bezos’s controversial helipad.
