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Queens Chamber of Commerce Launches Campaign to Bring Businesses to the Borough

Photo: Stock Unsplash

Feb. 4, 2020 By Allie Griffin

The Queens Chamber of Commerce launched a new campaign to encourage businesses to relocate to the borough today.

The centerpiece of the “Relocate to Queens” campaign is a new website to attract business owners with interactive data and maps on demographics, consumer and labor force statistics both boroughwide and neighborhood by neighborhood.

“The ‘Relocate to Queens’ initiative will make the case for Queens with hard numbers that prove what we already know – Queens has world-class talent, an unbeatable quality of life, and is a great place to do business,” said Thomas Grech, President & CEO of the Queens Chamber of Commerce.

The website also features searchable listings of available properties for purchase or lease, where companies and business owners can see which locations qualify for Economic Opportunity Zone (EOZ) tax incentives.

The site provides a detailed snapshot of each Queens neighborhoods backed by data.

In launching the campaign, Grech noted the failed Amazon HQ2 deal in Long Island City.

“A year ago Amazon shocked us all by abandoning their plans to move to our borough, but it’s important that we remember what attracted the biggest company in the world here in the first place,” he said. “We have everything here, from our diverse talent pool, to a thriving arts scene, to top-ranked educational institutions, that businesses—both large and small—need to thrive.”

With Queens’ population swelling larger and larger, the Chamber of Commerce hopes businesses will be interested in coming to the borough.

Queens’ population has increased by 25 percent since 1980, to record 2.4 million residents, according to a May 2018 report published by the New York State Comptroller.

In November 2019, the New York Building Congress forecasted $35.5 billion will be spent on construction in the borough from 2019 to 2021 — a 16 percent increase from the previous three-year period.