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Met Life, the international insurance company known the world over by its dancing Snoopy logo, may be waltzing 1,700 jobs out of Long Island City and leaving a giant vacant space in the middle of one of the areas seeing the most development in Queens.

According to Crain’s New York Business, the insurance company may be in talks to lease a large block of space at 1095 Sixth Ave., the office tower that Equity Office Properties Trust is renovating across from Bryant Park in Manhattan.

The company decided to relocate nearly 1,000 workers to Queens in 2001, which was hailed as a move that would help boost the boroughs outside Manhattan. It validated the city’s strategy of luring cost-conscious firms to less-expensive locations. In exchange for signing a 20-year lease, the company received more than $26 million in city tax and energy incentives and $4.3 million in state funding. It isn’t clear if MetLife would have to return any of that money should they move.

MetLife is believed to have encountered resistance from employees because its buildings are far from the area’s commercial and transportation core. Also, a predicted transformation of the area has not yet occurred.

“The borough president reached out to the president of Met Life, who reportedly is out of the country. She was told she could speak to his assistant. She wants only to speak to the president,” said Dan Andrews, spokesman for Helen Marshall. “She wants to ask him to be patient. The Queens Plaza Renaissance is going on, but it is not happening overnight.”

“The problem with MetLife is that, unlike the [Long Island City] Citibank building, there is no direct subway access where they are located,” said John Maltz, the president of Queens-based brokerage firm Greiner-Maltz Real Estate.

For her part, Marshall has also reached out to Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff, and asked him to do all that the City can do to keep them here, according to Andrews.

“MetLife has been a great addition to Long Island City and a vital part of the rebirth of Queens Plaza,” said Assemblyman Michael Gianaris (D-Astoria). “I intend to do whatever it takes to keep them in Queens.”

Long Island City has seen massive growth since Citibank moved in more than a decade ago, and a bustling growth is occurring in the area south of Queens Plaza, with multiple developments being built at once. However, plans for Queens Plaza itself, which have been in the works for several years, have not yet come to fruition.

A spokesman for Met Life did not return calls.