Amazon Takes Up More Office Space In Boston
USA – Amazon has leased an under-construction 17-storey office tower in the Seaport District of Boston to house over 3,000 additional workers, reported CNBC on Tuesday morning (26 January, EST).
The e-commerce giant announced on the same day that the workspace spanning 630,000 sq ft will feature offices, innovation labs, and mixed-use common areas for staff, on top of having 2 theatres and other public spaces.
“Set for completion in 2024, 1 Boston Wharf Road will also feature a community dog park, ground-floor retail space, and a new performing arts centre for Bostonians to enjoy, with two live performance venues consisting of a 500-seat theatre and a 100-seat black box theatre,” it said in its announcement.
The new corporate and technology hires are expected to handle finance, management, machine learning, human resources (HR), software development, and artificial intelligence (AI). These new jobs will support Alexa, Amazon Robotics, Amazon Web Services, and the company’s fledgling Amazon Pharmacy. Amazon expects to hire these people in the next few years.
The move further increases Amazon’s presence in Boston. In 2018, the ecommerce giant announced that it would employ about 2,000 people in Boston and lease a different 17-storey mixed-use building within the same district.
“This is Amazon’s second full-building lease in Boston’s Seaport after securing a 430,000 sq ft building at 111 Harbor Way. Now under construction by WS Development, this office will be completed later this year and will host 2,000 Amazon employees.
Notably, the ecommerce giant has been employing an unprecedented number of people during the COVID-19 pandemic, which fuelled demand for online sales, as stuck-at-home consumers turned to the internet to purchase important and nonessential items.
As a matter of fact, Amazon has hired over 400,000 workers last year alone, increasing its global headcount to more than 1 million. In 2020, the company also announced that it will create thousands of jobs at tech hubs in key cities like New York, San Diego, and Detroit.
