The company had cancelled plans for a headquarters in Queens 10 months ago, after backlash from residents and politicians

New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is “waiting on the haters to apologize” after Amazon announced it would open corporate offices in New York City after all, nearly a year after the internet giant abruptly reversed a decision to build a second headquarters there.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) Me waiting on the haters to apologize after we were proven right on Amazon and saved the public billions https://t.co/AC64pG0nZI pic.twitter.com/xzCepkX4AV

Amazon said on Friday it will open offices in New York City’s Hudson Yards neighborhood in 2021 to house its consumer and advertising teams, marking its most substantial expansion in the city since the reversal.

The move comes 10 months after the company cancelled plans for a headquarters in Queens after extensive backlash from residents and politicians, including Ocasio-Cortez. They had objected to the nearly $3bn in financial incentives the city and state had offered Amazon for the construction of the headquarters.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Demonstrators oppose Amazon’s plan to build a headquarters in New York City at a protest in November 2018. Photograph: Stephanie Keith/Getty Images

Numerous cities had vied to host the new Amazon headquarters, hoping that elaborate incentive packages would attract the giant. When the company ultimately chose to split the HQ2 between Washington DC and New York City, it garnered criticism from those who said it continues a negative trend of pulling top talent and technology to the coasts. Critics in New York also worried the headquarters, planned to be built in a working class area of Queens, would raise rents in the area and push locals into homelessness.

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Ocasio-Cortez and other critics noted on Friday that this time around, Amazon is moving into Manhattan without any extravagant tax incentives.

“Won’t you look at that: Amazon is coming to NYC anyway – *without* requiring the public to finance shady deals, helipad handouts for Jeff Bezos, & corporate giveaways”, Ocasio-Cortez tweeted on Friday in response to Amazon’s move. “Maybe the Trump admin should focus more on cutting public assistance to billionaires instead of poor families.”

Amazon’s expansion in New York City comes as part of its plans to “continue to hire and grow organically” across its 18 tech hubs, a spokeswoman told the Guardian by email. The new office will add to the workforce Amazon currently employs of more than 3,500 people in its New York City offices.