Amazon Temporarily Halts Construction Of Virginia HQ Phase II
USA – After Amazon announced in January that it plans to let go of more than 18,000 of its global labour force, the highest retrenchment in the e-commerce giant’s history, it has decided to delay the expansion of its headquarters in Virginia, reported The Associated Press on Friday afternoon (3 March, SGT).
In a statement, Amazon’s top executive of its global corporate property portfolio John Schoettler revealed that the e-commerce giant is pushing back the construction of PenPlace, Phase II of its headquarters in Northern Virginia.
Nonetheless, he revealed that Amazon has already recruited more than 8,000 staff and is poised to welcome them to the Met Park campus, Phase I of the Virginia headquarters once it is operational by June 2023.
“We’re always evaluating space plans to make sure they fit our business needs and to create a great experience for employees, and since Met Park will have space to accommodate more than 14,000 employees, we’ve decided to shift the ground-breaking of PenPlace out a bit,” Schoettler explained.
In February 2021, the e-commerce giant made public that it intends to construct a 350ft Helix tower as part of PenPlace. Overall, the new office towers under Phase II were expected to accommodate over 25,000 employees once they are finished.
