City Plots Next Ideas for Former Amazon HQ2 Site

On Valentine’s Day 2019, Amazon decided to abandon its HQ2 site in Long Island City. Little has happened there in the six years since, but that could soon change.

Mayor Eric Adams’ administration is planning to release a request for expressions of interest in the spring for the warehouse at the center of the former Amazon HQ2 site, Crain’s reported. The city’s Economic Development Corporation is expected to solicit ideas for commercial, light industrial and community-oriented uses.

“This former Amazon HQ2 site, it is a shame and a missed opportunity that we haven’t done anything on it,” said Councilperson Julie Won.

The center of the planned headquarters site is 44-36 Vernon Boulevard, a 672,000-square-foot warehouse occupied by the Department of Education. Members of the community have argued for turning the property into a local business and artist incubator.

The relevant site also includes two city-owned parking lots, which are controlled by the Transportation and Small Business Services departments. The REFI only applied to the Vernon Boulevard lot, but city officials have also informally solicited community members for ideas for the parking lots.

Those lots were part of TF Cornerstone’s failed plan to build a 1.5 million-square-foot, 1,000-unit mixed-use project. The developer no longer controls the sites it won through an RFP, according to Won.

Responses to the REFI are expected to be due by the end of the summer. From there, the EDC could issue a more formal request for the city-owned site.

The Amazon HQ2 saga has had a lasting impact on Long Island City. Amazon announced its plans for a second headquarters in the area in late 2018, only to walk away months later. The company’s brief foray into Queens led to a frenzy of dealmaking and the rise of a powerful opposition that helped kill the deal. It also led to something of a halo effect for the neighborhood, local players told The Real Deal in 2020.

Long Island City is in the midst of a larger rezoning effort. A draft proposal calls for a rezoning between Dutch Kills and the Hunters Point waterfront, permitting more high-rise housing on the waterfront and further east, as well as high- and medium-density mixed-use properties north of the Queensboro Bridge.

The rezoning’s formal review is expected to begin in spring.

— Holden Walter-Warner