Amazon continues to grow its footprint in Seattle’s South Lake Union neighborhood. The latest expansion comes with a new lease at 428 Westlake Avenue, the old Tommy Bahama headquarters, where Amazon will lease all five floors of office space at a six-floor building owned by Vulcan Real Estate.
“We are pleased that we could meet an immediate space need for Amazon,” Ada M. Healey, Vice President of Real Estate for Vulcan Inc., said in a statement. “We have a great partnership with Amazon and are happy to accommodate some of their growth at the center of their South Lake Union urban campus.”
Amazon plans to move into the building in the first half of 2017. Vulcan worked with McKinstry and CollinsWoerman to open the building in 2004 for Tommy Bahama, which left to a larger space last year after its lease expired.
Retailers on the first floor of the building, which include AT&T, Berliner Doner Kebab, Key Bank and Museum Quality Framing, will remain.
This marks yet another expansion for Amazon in South Lake Union, where it first planted its flag in 2007. The growth has been remarkable, and Amazon now occupies 8.5 million square feet in Seattle; by 2022, that number could be 12 million.
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has called Amazon’s decision to develop its campus in the city of Seattle, rather than the suburbs, an environmentally-friendly approach and “a very attractive feature for some of our employees” who want to live in the urban core. Amazon employs more than 20,000 in the city.
Amazon is also opening a new office across Lake Washington in Bellevue, where it recently completed a lease for 354,000 square feet of office space.
