Construction is underway for the first of two new downtown Bellevue office buildings for Amazon, as the company is set to grow its presence on the Eastside in the coming years.
How Bellevue wooed Amazon over to the Eastside
Crews have begun demolishing an existing parking garage on the lot of 108th Avenue Northeast for the new building.
“I expect great things from Amazon,” Bellevue City Councilmember Conrad Lee told the Jason Rantz Show on KTTH about his thoughts on the new workforce coming to the city.
This week, Amazon submitted a design proposal for the second tower at Bellevue 600, a location in the downtown area that the company says “will become the central hub for our Eastside presence.” The Bellevue 600 site will feature two office buildings with a capacity of more than 7,000 employees.
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“Amazon brings — in addition to employment — they bring talent, global talent, throughout the world,” Lee said. “And they are in the business that’s going to be the technology of the future.”
The second tower, according to Amazon’s release published April 2, will include 31 stories of mixed-use office space, meeting rooms, and gathering areas, with retail and exhibition space on the ground floor.
The expansion in Bellevue is part of Amazon’s effort to eventually bring 25,000 jobs to the area. The new building is set to open in 2024.
Report: Amazon now has more employees than Boeing in WA
Last week, Amazon announced that it plans to return to an “office-centric” work model after the end of the pandemic. That operates in contrast to other Seattle-area tech companies, which have indicated over the last year that they plan to pursue a transition to a hybrid work-from-home approach.
For Amazon, the decision to move most of its workers back into offices was based on creating a work environment that lets its employees “invent, collaborate, and learn together most effectively.”
The KIRO Radio Newsdesk contributed to this report.
This story was originally published at MyNorthwest.com.
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