As other corporations empty their commercial office space and send workers home, Amazon is defying the trend and leasing 900,000 square feet of new space – often at bargain rates – as it makes plans to add 3,500 white-collar jobs in Dallas, Denver, Detroit, New York, Phoenix, and San Diego.
“The ability to connect with people, for teams to work together in an ad hoc fashion – you can do it virtually, but it isn’t as spontaneous,” said Ardene Williams, Amazon’s VP of Workforce Development.
She said the company expects ambitious, skilled professionals will still be drawn to urban centers.
The 3,500 jobs are all new and span the company’s operations from engineering and product management to web services and the Alexa virtual assistant.
About 2,000 of the jobs will be housed in the Manhattan building that was home to the now-bankrupt Lord & Taylor’s flagship store. Amazon has bought the building for more than $1 billion from WeWork, the flailing office-sharing company.
Amazon already employs more than 100,000 white-collar workers.
Facebook recently leased 730,000 square feet in Manhattan, seeming to contradict its earlier statement that most of its workers will remain at home.
TREND FORECAST: Despite these highly publicized moves into commercial real estate, as the “Greatest Depression” worsens, supply will far outstrip demand, thus pushing down both property values and rental income.
