What I'm curious about is whether LIC condo prices are really going to increase dramatically compared to similar projects in other parts of NYC? LIC is a major subway stop and well connected to the rest of NYC as is...you can live in Manhattan and get to LIC in 1-9 stops in < 30m. You could even live in Jersey City and get to LIC in 50m. It takes longer for some people living in outer neighborhoods of SF to get downtown than that!
Long Island prices are probably not going to be noticably affected. 25,000 people moving into NYC is a small blip. Perhaps Long Island City [1] prices will go up a tiny amount due to people who want to walk into work.
To keep things in perspective, there are >8 million people in NYC and >20 million in the surrounding areas. Amazon is planning to employ 25,000, which is tiny in the scheme of things, especially considering that it's going to take a decade to be fully up and running. On top of that, I'm sure that many, if not most, of these employees are going to come from NYC's existing workforce.
I used to work in Long Island City and I commuted from Manhattan's Upper West Side, which took about 30 minutes. Commutes are even shorter from must of lower Manhattan and Brooklyn, not to mention most of Queens. I just can't imagine that this is going to have a noticeable effect on NYC or Long Island pricing overall.
[1] to those not familiar with New York, Long Island City, despite the name, is a neighborhood, not a municipality, located in Queens. While technically Brooklyn and Queens are located physically on Long Island, typically when people say "Long Island" they are referring to those parts of the island beyond New York City borders.
This is a good point. As a former LIC resident, I lived there because of the transit situation to other areas of the city. If I was working in LIC rather than Manhattan, I could easily live somewhere like Flushing or Greenpoint instead.
Apartment prices have been dropping in LIC for a few years because of all the new development. I can't imagine Amazon's announcement will slow the development pace, so I wouldn't be surprised if LIC rents do not rise at all.
Over the past few years, LIC has grown a ton - to the extent that it is depressing rents in neighboring areas like Astoria. As you mentioned, I'd imagine a lot of Amazon employees are going to want to live in different parts of the city as well. Considering both of those factors, I'm not concerned.
Doesn't sound too bad these 30 to 50 minutes. I currently have give or take 90 minutes one way depending if you take breakfast from my favorite coffee shop in the morning into account or not. And if the trains are running on time that's quite acceptable time.
Today it will be more like 2.5 to 3 hours to get home... Thank god for work from home tomorrow!
Probably more likely that nearby land that's within a decent bus ride of LIC will increase in value and higher density housing will be built there. The land that was right next to the existing subway stop was obviously already quite valuable.
> What I'm curious about is whether LIC condo prices are really going to increase dramatically compared to similar projects in other parts of NYC?
It depends on whether NYC/NY will invest in it. People have talked about LIC being the next great thing for decades. I guess sooner or later, it will be LIC's turn. But I don't think AMZN is it.
> you can live in Manhattan and get to LIC in 1-9 stops in < 30m.
Nobody who lives in manhattan wants to work in LIC though. That's the problem. Manhattan is the work hub of the satellite regions like brooklyn, queens, hoboken, etc. These regions aren't work hubs for manhattan.
> You could even live in Jersey City and get to LIC in 50m.
Depends on the part of jersey city you live in. Most people aren't willing to switch trains to get to work. PATH to Metro twice a day? No thank you. If traffic warrants it, you could probably take the ferry directly from downtown JC to LIC.
> Most people aren't willing to switch trains to get to work.
Not true in NYC. Plenty of people change subways once or even twice to commute. Changing PATH to subway is no different except you have to pay twice.
> you could probably take the ferry directly from downtown JC to LIC.
Currently there are no ferries that run this route directly. NY Waterway runs the Hudson River ferries, which the MTA (subcontracted out) runs the East River ferries. You could do this commute by ferry if you changed ferries at Wall St/Pier 11, but that point you might as well take the train.
