NEW YORK – Senate Deputy Leader Michael Gianaris issued the following statement on December 6 after news broke about e-commerce giant Amazon’s decision to locate 1,500 employees in a 335,000 square-foot office in Hudson Yards, without receiving any tax breaks. 

“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. Now, we must enact reforms to our economic development programs to ensure no company can seek to take advantage of the public again.” 

Since Amazon’s decision to leave New York in February, Senator Gianaris introduced legislation to ban secrecy clauses in economic development agreements, de-link state opportunity zone tax breaks from the federal tax code, and end insider dealing in the real estate industry.