The great technology companies of Silicon Valley are moving the battle to New York, the great financial and business center of the east coast of the United States. After the e-commerce group Amazon revealed its intention to invest $ 2.5 billion to build a new headquarters in Long Island City, in the borough of Queens, Google has just announced its ambitious expansion plans in the city.
The Internet company aims to grow on the streets of Hudson and Washington, where the company’s New York headquarters are located, southwest of Manhattan. Google will invest 1,000 million dollars in a new campus that will occupy 160,000 square meters and will be called Google Hudson Square. “New York continues to be a great source of diverse and international talent, that’s what brought the city in 2000 and that’s what keeps us here,” said Ruth Porat, Google’s chief financial officer. The technology currently employs 7,000 workers in New York, but the new investment will double the figure in the next ten years. For its part, Amazon aims to create up to 25,000 jobs in Lon Island City.
The plans of both companies are included in the strategy of the City of New York to encourage technology to develop in the city, as part of its effort to reduce dependence on the financial sector and create jobs for the future.
The West Village of New York is the epicenter of the plans of Alphabet, the parent company of Google, which have intensified this year. In March, the company that directs Larry Page acquired for 2,400 million dollars the building where the Chelsea Market is located, a leisure and restoration complex that allowed him to grow in one of the most demanded neighborhoods of the city. Google broke into the area in 2010, when it bought an old warehouse at number 111 of Eighth Avenue.
For its part, Amazon’s commitment to New York will mean a revolution for the Queens neighborhood. According to the calculations of the group founded by Jeff Bezos, for every dollar destined for its current headquarters in Seattle, the city has achieved a return of 1.4 billion dollars. However, their plans begin to run into the first obstacles. Groups of citizens of Queens, supported by Democratic politicians, oppose the plans of Amazon before the fear that the prices shoot up and criticize the fiscal incentives of 3,000 million dollars offered to a company that is worth almost 800,000 million dollars in Wall Street. Amazon has already hired lobbies to defend its strategy.
Also published on Medium.