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October 30, 2019
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DattaHomes

Look inside the new Expedia HQ in Seattle and company’s commuting policy

Thousands of Expedia employees will work in Seattle’s Interbay neighborhood by 2020.
Author: Brittany Moorer
Published: 11:06 AM PDT October 7, 2019
Updated: 11:01 PM PDT October 8, 2019
SEATTLE — Expedia employees are moving into the company’s new headquarters in Seattle this week.

The move from Bellevue to Seattle’s Interbay neighborhood has been in the works for years.

The 40-acre campus features open views of the Seattle skyline, Elliot Bay, and the Olympic mountains. About 1.6 acres along the waterfront will be open to the public.

It sits in the old Amgen property along Elliott Avenue along the waterfront.

Though some tech companies across the country are opting to try out smaller tech cities to save on costs, Expedia Group saw the move to Seattle as an advantage.

“As you see companies moving back and forth across Lake Washington between Bellevue and Seattle, it really is more indicative of the really wealth of tech talent Puget Sound wide, we’re confident whether we’re in Seattle or Bellevue, we’ll be able to attract the same type of talent,” said Josh deBerge, a spokesperson for Expedia Group.

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Approximately 4,500 employees will gradually move over to the new campus between now and February 2020.

Expedia has room to expand in Interbay in the long-term and could nearly double its workforce to 8,000.

Expedia and the city say they have been working together for years to prepare for the big move and to ease anticipated road congestion. The goal, the company says, is to discourage employees from driving to work solo. They plan to do that by giving out free ORCA transit cards, subsidizing carpools and ride sharing, opening a 400-stall bike storage facility, offering shuttles, and charging market-rate parking for anyone who decides to drive alone to work – that can run as much as $16 a day. Employees will get a $5 bonus for every day they take public transit, bike, or walk.

Uncategorized
October 30, 2019
0
DattaHomes

Amazon’s rapid expansion in Bellevue could reach 4.8M square feet and power ‘spectacular’ growth for Seattle suburb

A sketch of what Amazon’s big new tower in Bellevue, Wash. might look like. (NBBJ Sketch)

Amazon spent most of the last decade gobbling up every available piece of real estate in Seattle, helping power a building boom in the city. But with signs pointing to Amazon cooling on its hometown, a new report lays out how the tech giant’s expansion in nearby Bellevue could galvanize a level of growth over the next couple years that took decades to achieve in the past.

Just two years after opening its first office in Bellevue, Amazon has leased three additional office projects, and it is planning to build a tower — or two —on a high-profile site it bought earlier this year. Combined, those sites could total nearly 2.9 million square feet for Amazon, per the report from real estate firm Broderick Group — and that could be just the beginning.

Broderick Group pointed to three additional properties Amazon has been linked to, bringing its potential footprint in the city to 4.8 million square feet. The report came with a disclaimer that it is just speculating on the additional offices, which total of 1.9 million square, and no leases have been signed.

Here is a look at everything Amazon has leased so far in Bellevue, and the properties Broderick Group speculates Amazon could take:
(Broderick Group Graphic)

The firm estimates that all this activity could bring upwards of 15,000 or more tech workers to downtown Bellevue over the next few years. And that doesn’t even take into consideration rapid growth from Facebook and others in the city.

Downtown Bellevue has been on the rise for the last few decades, powered by expansion from local and global firms, many of them in the tech industry. But, Broderick Group notes that Amazon’s appetite for space could set off an unprecedented period of growth, with the downtown office market ballooning in size by as much as 40 percent over the next few years.

“Given it took 30 years (1990-2019) for the downtown Bellevue market to develop a total of 5.8M (square feet), Amazon’s expected growth of 4.2M (square feet) in a period of 5 years is staggering,” according to the report. “The result will bring not only significant office growth, but residential developers are also lining up to supply the next wave of Amazon employees with new multi-family housing inventory. The positive impact to the Eastside economy, and to downtown Bellevue in particular, will be nothing short of spectacular.”

Amazon’s real estate expansion in Bellevue kicked off a couple years ago but went into overdrive in 2019. Following a contentious debate over a “head tax” on top employers in Seattle, Amazon confirmed plans to back out of one of its most high-profile buildings and turned its attention to Bellevue.

In April, Amazon said it planned to relocate its entire Seattle-based worldwide operations team to Bellevue by 2023. The new tower Amazon is planning atop a future light rail station at 600 Bellevue will be home to many of these employees when the move is done.

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