AMZN Amazon.com Inc

By Katie Honan 

Fire Department of New York officials expect Amazon.com Inc.'s new campus in Long Island City to put a strain on their firefighters in the Queens neighborhood and are considering reopening a firehouse shuttered 15 years ago to accommodate the tech giant's arrival.

In 2003 then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg closed Engine Company 261, which was housed at 37-20 29th St. in Long Island City, and five other firehouses across the city. Since then, community members and officials have pushed the city to reopen it, particularly as the number of residential buildings in Long Island City has skyrocketed.

The FDNY was already assessing the need for additional resources in the neighborhood before Amazon announced in November that it would build a second headquarters there, promising to bring at least 25,000 jobs to the location over the next decade.

"We can anticipate with confidence that the growth in daytime population brought on by Amazon will lead to a greater number of incidents," John Sudnick, the acting chief of the FDNY, said Monday during a City Council hearing about the neighborhood's emergency services.

Between 2014 and 2018, the community district where Engine 261 was located recorded an increase of 19% in the number of emergency calls to the FDNY. During that same time, FDNY response times rose 9%, Mr. Sudnick said in his prepared remarks.

The adjacent community district, where Amazon's so-called HQ2 will be built, also saw an increased demand, with emergency calls up 16% between 2014 and 2018, and FDNY response times rising 4%, according to FDNY officials.

"Our existing need for resources in Long Island City will be expanded by the rapid growth that the area will experience when Amazon arrives," Mr. Sudnick said.

Last year, the FDNY added an additional life-support unit to Long Island City and surrounding neighborhoods, and has used a new response group to meet extra demand, he said.

City Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer, who has criticized the $3 billion in incentives that New York City and the state have promised Amazon to build the new campus, said he hopes the tech giant's arrival will lead city officials to reopen the closed engine company.

"There's almost no way for them not to," Mr. Van Bramer said in an interview after the hearing. "It just shouldn't have taken this long, it shouldn't have taken a deal with Amazon."

Elected officials at the hearing said the city should have anticipated the need in Long Island City even before the Amazon development was announced. The estimated cost to reopen the engine company is $4 million, according to officials.

Despite the existing need in Long Island City, the FDNY didn't meet with Amazon or the city agencies leading the HQ2 push before any decision was made, according to the FDNY. Officials from Amazon are meeting with the Department of City Planning and other city agencies, including the FDNY, to figure out how they can help, Mr. Sudnick said at the hearing.

A spokeswoman for Mayor Bill de Blasio said the city's priority was keeping residents safe.

"We're always evaluating resources, demands, and response times and, with an eye toward the future, we will continue to do that in Long Island City," she said in a statement.

A spokesman for Amazon didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

Write to Katie Honan at Katie.Honan@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

January 14, 2019 19:38 ET (00:38 GMT)

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