The article misses the point that a big part of Amazon's HQ2 was building new offices in an industrial area of LIC and not using existing real estate Manhattan.
“A company like Facebook and others are expanding because they are running out of talent in Silicon Valley and San Francisco,” said Paul Leonard, a managing consultant at CoStar.<p>Honest question... is that really true? It reads like hyperbole or certainly an over simplification.
Further underscores how much of an immense scam the HQ2 sweepstakes / city talent show was. It should always be brought up the next time a company, sports franchise, or other organization tries to get sweetheart deals to build somewhere. Amazon should be forced to wear this millstone around its neck every time it tries to extort a community for land.
“Many of these companies are willing to spend big dollars renting high-end Manhattan real estate, rather than the older office stock in Queens that Amazon was prepared to lease.”<p>In other words, development in Queens/LIC isn’t attractive and needed government subsidies to make Amazon consider going there.<p>In general it seems like tech companies are willing to pay top dollar for locations in the most expensive areas like SF and manhattan rather than try to find cheaper areas.