Amazon Announces Tallest Building in Bellevue, Continuing Expansion into the Eastside
In typical Amazon fashion, the tech giant announced they are planning to build the tallest tower in Bellevue. The proposed 43-story building will be located on 108th St NE, close to the planned light rail station once it hits the eastside. Dubbed “600 Bellevue”, this office tower will be one story larger than the current tallest buildings in Bellevue, the Bellevue Towers and Lincoln Square. If all goes according to plan, the building will be completed by 2024 – with the light rail on the eastside to be completed by 2023.
Amazon opened their first office in Bellevue back in 2017. Leasing over 350,000 square feet, it houses about 2,000 employees in such departments as AWS and Alexa. Over the course of two years, Amazon has been adding to their footprint in Bellevue. Former Expedia headquarters, Tower 333, has been scooped up by Amazon as well. Expedia plans to fully vacate with plans to move into their Seattle headquarters in the formerly Amgen campus this year. Amazon’s lease will start in 2020 with 400,000 square feet of office space and room for over 4,000 employees.
Another project in the works is a 17-story office building that has been permitted. Amazon plans to lease the building, called Summit III which will have over 350,000 square feet of space. While it is not yet under construction, it is conveniently located within blocks of its current leases and the planned office tower 600 Bellevue. Shortly after announcing its lease on Summit III, Amazon will also lease a two-tower building currently under construction. This 15-story, 715,000 square feet of space will be ready in 2022.
While Amazon is growing in Bellevue, it still maintains a large footprint in Seattle. It currently has about 12 million square feet of space, 2 million of which are currently under construction. Puget Sound Business Journal estimates with all the leases and newest building, Amazon will have nearly 4 million square feet of office space in Bellevue. This will allow for about 25,000 employees in Bellevue, on top of the current 45,000 employees in Seattle, and about 11,000 current openings.
Many felt the current mass leasing in Bellevue signaled Amazon’s “answer” to New York pulling out of HQ2. It’s easy to see why – millions of square feet are being built for Amazon’s long-term leases, some that are more than 15 years. Amazon and Jeff Bezos said they had planned all along to expand into Bellevue. The secondary HQ2 location in Virginia has already posted job openings back in April. Amazon promised 400 new jobs by the end of year. These employees will be operating in temporary office spaces until the new campus will be ready for occupancy in the fall.