SEATTLE: After conducting a yearlong search for a second home,
Amazon has switched gears and is now finalising plans to have a total of 50,000 employees in two locations, according to people familiar with the decision-making process.
The company is nearing a deal to move to the Long Island City neighbourhood of Queens, according to two of the people briefed on the discussions. Amazon is also close to a deal to move to the Crystal City area of Arlington, Virginia, a Washington suburb, one of the people said. Amazon already has more employees in those two areas than anywhere else outside
Seattle, its home base, and the Bay Area.
Amazon executives met two weeks ago with governor Andrew M Cuomo in the governor’s
Manhattan office, said one of the people briefed on the process, adding that the state had offered potentially hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies. Executives met separately with mayor Bill de Blasio, a person briefed on that discussion said. Long Island City is a short subway ride across the East River from
Midtown Manhattan.
“I am doing everything I can,” Cuomo told reporters when asked Monday about the state’s efforts to lure the company. “We have a great incentive package,” he said.