415,000 RSF in one fellow swoop

Yet another headline involving Amazon makes its way to the homes and offices of Seattle residents for what seems like a weekly if not daily occurrence. Expedia is planning and developing its new headquarters off Elliot Bay in Seattle, but before their space could hit the market to be backfilled… Amazon swooped in.

The owner of the building on 108th avenue, Equity Commonwealth, reported that Amazon signed a 16-year lease set to begin in 2020. The lease includes all 20 stories in the building, with more than 400,000 square feet of space. There will be about 2,500 Amazon employees occupying the space. Furthermore, Bellevue already plays host to 2,000 employees at Centre 425 making a grand total of 4,500 Amazonians as soon as 2020. Today, Amazon has approximately 130 open positions in Bellevue.

The latest lease pushes Amazon close to a footprint of 14 million square feet of office space in the Seattle area, and potentially 1.1 million in Bellevue alone.

Although not publicly released, Amazon has potentially let it slip that this new lease could be a big play for Expedia’s talent. Most if not all of Expedia’s employees reside on the Eastside, and with the new headquarters…well where it is… commutes could take up to two hours. The travel industry is ripe for disruption, and who other to get their feet wet than Amazon?