How Amazon landed up to $2 billion in subsidies for its new headquarters

[dalton99a]

https://www.theverge.com/2018/11/13/18079160/amazon-hq2-bids-process-cities-queens-arlington-nashville-crystal-city

How Amazon landed up to $2 billion in subsidies for its new headquarters
Secret bids led to massive tax breaks for the company
By Colin Lecher@colinlecher Nov 13, 2018, 12:43pm EST

Amazon has just announced the sites for its HQ2. Soon, the company will be expanding into Long Island City, Queens, and Crystal City, in Arlington, Virginia. The expansion, the retail giant says, will bring 25,000 employees to each of the areas, and the company said it would invest $5 billion in the offices. Already, the announcement is raising questions about what the deal will mean for the cities, the scope of the agreement, and how Amazon conducted the search in the first place. With more than $2 billion in potential subsidies available across the three sites, the secretive and dramatic search seems to have paid off.

The incentives the company will receive as part of the deals are already eye-popping: Amazon announced that, in New York, it will receive up to $1.2 billion in a refundable tax credit, tied to the creation of jobs, and a $325 million cash development grant. The company will also earn up to $573 million in cash grants for the Arlington investment if it creates the promised jobs. Amazon said it will also build an operations hub in Nashville, and it plans to bring 5,000 corporate jobs to the city.

According to the New York agreement, Amazon will be responsible for some infrastructure improvements, including creating nearby public space and a waterfront esplanade. The company will also offer programs like job fairs and technology training in the neighborhood, including in the nearby Queensbridge housing projects. But the investments still come at a substantial cost: the company could receive about $48,000 in subsidies per job.

In the Virginia agreement, the state agrees to pay for a number of transportation projects, including a pedestrian crossing for Route 1 and a connector bridge to Reagan National Airport.

While the Nashville announcement was unexpected, the choice of the two headquarter cities isn’t a surprise. The two have been reported as likely contenders for the past few days. What’s more surprising is just how little the public has learned about the bidding process before now.

When Amazon first announced its search for a second headquarters last year, the company kicked off an unusually open public bidding process. Cities large and small made their offers, as 238 placed their bids. But as the bidding moved to a narrower list of 20 finalists in January, the company insisted on secrecy. Cities were required to sign nondisclosure agreements and often declined to even acknowledge those agreements existed.

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[mikeysnot]

1. Chicago dodged a bullet here.

suckers.

[dlk]

2. Vulture Calitalism at its Finest

Because nothing says America like taxpayers underwriting the profits a $trillion company.