On our drive to New Hampshire we pass by an Amazon fulfillment center in Fall River, MA. The time it takes to drive the length of the building, going 65 mph, is breathtaking. I’ve never seen a larger warehouse with so many truck bays. And now Amazon is looking for office space in Boston to host some of the 100,000 new jobs it plans on adding over the next 18 months. The Boston Globe reports Amazon’s strategy in Bean Town.
Amazon.com Inc. said Thursday that it plans to add 100,000 jobs nationwide over the next 18 months. And it sounds like that could include a big expansion into Boston.
The tech and retail giant is looking to lease 100,000 to 200,000 square feet of office space in downtown, enough for hundreds of employees, according to several real estate sources with knowledge of the company’s search. Amazon wants to secure a location within the first quarter, and open the new offices by year’s end, according to the sources.
Amazon already has a large and growing presence in Kendall Square, but is eying downtown Boston in part because it has cheaper rents and more available space than in nearby Cambridge. It would also join a string of tech companies that have set up shop downtown, helping to reinvent the traditional business district as a hub for a new industry.
“Downtown Boston already has tremendous street cred in the tech world,” said Brendan Carroll, head of Encompass Real Estate Strategy, which tracks Boston’s office market. “But Amazon moving in would be a really big thing.”
Read more here.
