The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
New Amazon sites a study in contrasts
The two communities that learned Tuesday they are about to become homes to a pair of big, new East Coast bases for Amazon are both riverfront stretches of major metropolitan areas with ample transportation and space for workers.
But there are plenty of differences between New York’s Long Island City and Crystal City in northern Virginia.
Set within eyeshot of the nation’s capital, Crystal City is a thicket of 1980s-era office towers trying to plug into new economic energy after thousands of federal jobs moved elsewhere.
Rapidly growing Long Island City is an old manufacturing area already being reinvented as a hub for 21stcentury industry, creativity and urbane living.
Seattle-based Amazon, which set out last year to situate one additional headquarters, announced Tuesday that it was splitting its project into two.
Long Island City is already the fastest-developing neighborhood in the nation’s most populous city, and Amazon could pump up the volume in this buzzy part of Queens.
The addition of Amazon to the neighborhood stands to burnish New York City’s reputation as a tech capital. Landing Amazon also cements Long Island City’s transformation from a faded manufacturing zone to a vibrant, of-the-moment enclave of waterfront skyscrapers, modernized warehouses and artsy-tech ambience.
But Long Island City also has been straining to handle its growth.
Days before Tuesday’s announcement , the city unveiled a $180 million plan to address Long Island City’s packed schools, street design and a sewage system that groans in heavy rain. But those projects will just catch up with current needs, said area City Councilman Jimmy van Bramer.
“I know that there are a lot of people cheerleading for this, but HQ2 has to work for Queens and the people of Queens. It can’t just be good for Amazon,” said van Bramer, a Democrat. After the announcement, he said Amazon had “duped New York into offering unprecedented amounts of tax dollars to one of the wealthiest companies on Earth.”
If any place in America can absorb 25,000 Amazon jobs without disruption, it may well be Crystal City, Va., where nearly that many jobs have vanished over the last 15 years.
The neighborhood in Arlington County is bounded by the Potomac River and the nation’s capital on one side, by the Pentagon on another and Reagan National Airport on a third.
Despite its prime location and abundant transportation options, the neighborhood has been hit by a massive outflow of jobs. The Patent and Trademark Office began moving more than 7,000 jobs out of Crystal City in 2003. In 2005, the Defense Department announced plans to move roughly 17,000 jobs elsewhere as part of a base realignment.