Amazon Adds More Space in Queens

38-50 21st St. Image via Google Street View

Amazon has announced another location in the New York City area. The roughly 20,000-square-foot building is situated in the Long Island City neighborhood of Queens, the New York Business Journal reported. The last-mile delivery station will replace a former Green Apple Supermarket.

The tech behemoth chalked up the agreement at 38-50 21st St. last year, according to the Astoria Post. The owner of the property, listed by CommercialEdge as Queens Plaza Venture LLC, has filed for a $1.9 million capital renovation plan in April 2020. The permit authorizes the revamp of the existing single-story mercantile building into a storage/warehouse facility.

The e-commerce company’s recent expansion on Long Island includes two larger, full-building leases in Brooklyn’s Red Hook neighborhood. Situated at 640 Columbia St. and 280 Richards St., the warehouses have yet to be delivered, as the first is currently under construction and the latter is still in the planning stages. DH Property Holdings broke ground on 640 Columbia St. in January. The facility is poised to become the first multi-level distribution center on the East Coast.

Amazon locations in the outer boroughs

Built in 1996, the current Queens warehouse sits on a 1.7-acre plot between 38th and 40th Avenues, near Queensboro Bridge, offering easy access to Manhattan and Brooklyn. The owner picked up the asset in 2007 for $13.6 million, CommercialEdge data shows.

According to a recent Cushman & Wakefield industrial report examining NYC’s outer boroughs, Amazon committed to additional elbowroom at two East Brooklyn locations in the fourth quarter of 2020. The company signed 193,000 square feet at 12555-12595 Flatlands Ave. and 90,000 square feet at 2300 Linden Blvd., less than a mile south.

The same report shows that the general unemployment rate in the same boroughs was up at 14.5 percent in the last quarter, while warehouse and transportation employment registered a 23.3 percent uptick through November. A total of 1.1 million square feet of industrial space came online last year, all preleased to e-commerce companies.