page_title: Amazon HQ2
section_title: Long Island City
hierarchical_section_title: Amazon HQ2 / Winning bids / Long Island City
caption_attribution_description: English: Three-segment panorama of Long Island City, Queens, New York City.
context_page_description: Amazon HQ2 is a planned corporate headquarters in Crystal City, Arlington, Virginia for technology company Amazon. HQ2 was announced in September 2017, and is an expansion of the existing headquarters in Seattle, Washington.
  Amazon intended to spend $5 billion on construction, saying that HQ2 would house 50,000 workers when completed. The corporation also invited governments and economic development organizations to give the corporation tax breaks and other incentives to entice it to their locality. More than 200 cities in Canada, Mexico, and the United States eventually offered tax breaks, expedited construction approvals, promises of infrastructure improvements, new crime-reduction programs, and other incentives. On January 18, 2018, a shortlist of 20 finalists was announced, after which the candidate localities continued to detail or expand their incentive packages.
  On November 13, 2018, Amazon announced that HQ2 would be split into two locations, with 25,000 workers at each: National Landing, a future neighborhood including Crystal City in Arlington, Virginia, and Long Island City in Queens, New York City.
context_section_description: The subsidies offered to Amazon in New York include performance-based direct incentives of $1.525 billion based on whether the company created 25,000 jobs. This included a refundable tax credit through the state's Excelsior Program of up to $1.2 billion, calculated as a percentage of the salaries Amazon expects to pay employees over the following 10 years. Additionally, the Empire State Development Corporation would give Amazon a cash grant of $325 million based on the occupancy rates of HQ2 buildings over in the following 10 years. Under an agreement with New York City's government, half of the property taxes for the city's HQ2 campus would be waived, and the exempt amount would go to the city's PILOT (payment in lieu of taxes) fund to pay for infrastructure improvements in New York City.  Both states proposed that Amazon be given access to a helipad, and the New York state government also promised to upgrade infrastructure in conjunction with HQ2's construction there.
  Amazon was said to have chosen New York City as one of the sites for HQ2 because of the city's highly skilled pool of talent; existing tech, finance, and media industries; and strong university system, including Columbia University and Cornell Tech.
caption: Long Island City, Queens, New York City, canceled second location of Amazon HQ2
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