Part of Amazon heads east from Seattle to Bellevue

Amazon is leaving its office building in Denny Triangle, reducing its Seattle presence while expanding in Bellevue. The company confirmed to the Puget Sound Business Journal and the Seattle Times last week that it has let its lease expire at the Metropolitan Park North building, 1220 Howell Street, and plans to vacate the premises this month.

Amazon has been in the building since 2013. Its lease runs through February 2024, according to King County records.

Approximately 800 employees from Met Park North have been reassigned to other facilities across Amazon’s Puget Sound headquarters, though the company did not specify their new locations. Amazon considers Seattle, Bellevue, and Redmond part of its headquarters in the Puget Sound region, a shift solidified a few years ago when it began developing a cluster of office buildings in downtown Bellevue to eventually house 25,000 employees.

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Amazon has focused its employee growth in Bellevue, increasing its headcount there by about 2,000 workers in the last seven months, reaching 14,000 by the end of October. In contrast, its Seattle headcount remained at 50,000 employees, down from 55,000 in 2022 and 2023, partly due to layoffs and the shift to Bellevue.

Amazon also had 2,000 employees in Redmond as of the end of October.

The decision to let the lease expire comes as Amazon prepares for a five-day-a-week in-office requirement starting in January. As part of this mandate, Amazon will reintroduce assigned desks at its headquarters in the Puget Sound region and HQ2 in Arlington, Virginia, CEO Andy Jassy told employees.

The company’s Global Real Estate and Facilities team is working on a plan to accommodate desks, but employees are still expected to be in the office five days a week, even if their assigned workspace isn’t ready by Jan. 2, according to an FAQ document shared with The Seattle Times.

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Meanwhile, another Amazon lease in Seattle’s South Lake Union neighborhood reached its original expiration date, but the company does not plan to vacate the building. Amazon signed a 10-year lease for 26,000 square feet of office space in the historic Supply Laundry building in May 2014, with options for two five-year extensions. The building, 477 Yale Ave. N, was initially built in 1904 as a commercial laundry business and now includes apartments, retail, and office space.

Real estate investment firm Timberlane Partners purchased the Supply Laundry office building and the Stack House apartments in June for $115 million. Previously owned by JPMorgan Chase, which acquired it from Vulcan Real Estate in 2015, the property features a smokestack that pays homage to its roots.

The Broderick Group, a Seattle and Bellevue commercial real estate firm, has listed 147,000 square feet of office space in the Met Park North building for lease, available Dec. 1.

Bill Kaczaraba is a content editor at MyNorthwest. You can read his stories here. Follow Bill on X, formerly known as Twitter, here and email him here.