[chris08876]

Amazon is turning out to be a bunch of a-holes.


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Amazon walks away from 722K sf lease for Seattle’s Rainier Square

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.

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