As this is now under construction, can we move this thread to the Skyscraper & Highrise Construction Forum?
__________________ As a staunch Marxist, I don't want to belong to any club that would accept me as a member. Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well I have others.
Amazon walks away from 722K sf lease for Seattle’s Rainier Square
Quote:
Amazon is walking away from another huge real estate deal, this time in its hometown of Seattle.
The e-commerce giant is cancelling a 722,000-square-foot lease for the entirety of Wright Runstad & Company’s 58-story Rainier Square tower, currently under construction, according to the Seattle Times. Last year Amazon threatened to pull the plug on the lease if the city passed a proposed business tax, which it ultimately did not.
The decision comes just two weeks after Amazon shocked real estate watchers and abandoned plans for a new 25,000-job headquarters in New York’s Long Island City neighborhood. In doing so, the company turned away from a $3 billion incentive program amid intense opposition to the deal from some city, state, and federal lawmakers.
Both the Seattle and Long Island City episodes show Amazon is willing to leave major deals on the table if it can’t get the economic concessions it wants from local governments. Seattle’s so-called “head tax” would have taxed large companies around $275 per employee to pay for services and housing for people experiencing homelessness.
Yeah I kinda lost respect for them at this point. I didn't like them abandoning LIC, but now this really shows that they are just in it for themselves, and won't do the leg work to aid the community. I think more places need to tell Bezos to go f himself at this point. One company can't influence a cities policy, at least to be fair to the people.