New York will have Amazon facilities after all.

After scrapping earlier deal, retailer moving into Big Apple

NEW YORK — Amazon has signed a lease for a new office space in Manhattan that will house more than 1,500 employees, less than a year after pulling out of a deal for a larger headquarters in the borough of Queens after politicians and activists objected to nearly $3 billion in incentives.

The new office almost immediately renewed a debate over whether the tax breaks and other incentives were excessive, given the likelihood that Amazon would continue to expand in New York City regardless because of the city’s large talent pool. The online retail giant received no incentives for its new 335,000-square-foot complex in a building near Hudson Yards, a high-end commercial and residential development on the west side in midtown Manhattan.

Amazon said the new office will open in 2021 and will house employees from its consumer and advertisement teams. The Seattle-based company already has 3,500 employees in other New York offices, and the headquarters for its subsidiary Audible is in nearby Newark, New Jersey.

Amazon dropped plans this year to build a $2.5 billion campus in the Queens neighborhood of Long Island City that was projected to bring 25,000 new jobs over 15 years.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo had lashed out at politicians and activists whose campaign helped unravel the Queens project, saying it threatened to undermine New York City’s emergence as tech hub and squandered an opportunity to generate money for schools, housing and transit. Critics of the incentives package swiftly cited Amazon’s latest corporate lease to argue that those fears were unfounded.

“Amazon is coming to New York, just as they always planned. Fortunately, we dodged a $3 billion bullet by not agreeing to their subsidy shakedown earlier this year,” New York state Sen. Michael Gianaris said in a statement.

Cuomo pushed back against the reaction, saying the Queens headquarters would have brought in more jobs and the new office will not benefit Long Island City.

“This is crumbs from the table compared to a feast,” Cuomo said. “We don’t have a problem bringing businesses to Manhattan but we have been trying for decades to get that Queens waterfront developed.”

Mayor Bill DeBlasio had blamed Amazon for pulling out of the deal prematurely. His office did so again Saturday, while lamenting that Long Island City had lost out on Amazon’s expansion plans.

“Utimately, what Amazon needs is qualified tech talent, and that’s why it needs to be in New York,” said Joe Parilla, a fellow at the metropolitan policy program at the Brookings Institute.