Amazon Plans to Add 2,000 Jobs, Lease Giant Office in Boston
It's not the coveted HQ2, but the company is in negotiations for a massive new outpost in the Seaport.
Photo via iStock/AdrianHancu
Amazon may still be playing coy about the location of its second headquarters, but the company is already getting cozy in Boston.
On Tuesday, Mayor Marty Walsh announced the e-commerce giant plans to lease a huge office in the Seaport and fill more than 2,000 jobs in the Hub in the coming years. If the deal is inked, Amazon’s new digs will comprise 430,000 square feet of office space along the waterfront, according to documents filed with the city’s planning and development agency.
Construction on the building could begin as early as this summer, and Amazon plans to finish the office by 2021. In exchange for creating no fewer than 2,000 jobs within 25 miles of Boston before 2025, the company is hoping to nab a $5 million property tax break. The new building is also expected to generate $4.4 million in funding for affordable housing and roughly $875,000-worth of capital for job training in Boston.
Although the expansion isn’t the grand prize of Amazon’s second headquarters, Walsh said on Twitter it is “a tremendous vote of confidence in Boston’s economy,” and pledged that the city would work with the company to see that the office reaches its full potential.
At this point, Amazon is far from the new kid on Boston’s block. The company employs around 1,200 people in its Kendall Square and Back Bay outposts, according to the Boston Globe, and a forthcoming office in Fort Point will add another 900 people to its Boston-based workforce.
We’re still in the thick of competition with 19 other cities for Amazon’s coveted HQ2. The company plans to invest more than $5 billion and add as many as 50,000 new jobs in the winning metropolis, which will be announced by the end of the year.
