Amazon To Become Vancouver's Largest Office User As Part Of HQ2 Pivot
Amazon may not be finished with New York, but another city has emerged as a primary beneficiary of its reversal on HQ2 in the Big Apple.
The Seattle-based company has agreed to lease nearly 1.3M SF at two new office developments across the street from one another in Downtown Vancouver, Canada, The Globe and Mail and Daily Hive report. Amazon has agreed to take the entire office portions of both buildings, which some in the real estate industry speculate could bring its total employment in Vancouver over 12,000 workers by 2023.
The vast majority of Amazon's new space will be at The Post, QuadReal Property Group's redevelopment of the Canada Post office building that will include two new glassy towers on top of the existing structure. Amazon had agreed to lease 416K SF of the 1.13M SF available at the Post in April, before expanding that deal to include all 1.13M SF in late November, the Globe and Mail reports.
Amazon has also agreed to lease the entire 152K SF office portion of Oxford Properties Group's development at 402 Duinsmuir St., the Daily Hive reports. Construction on the nine-story tower is estimated to be completed by the middle of next year, as opposed to 2023 for the Post.
QuadReal's redevelopment will be the largest office property in Vancouver when completed, and it will sit on top of a 200K SF retail portion, the Globe and Mail reports. When the 21- and 22-story towers are completed and filled, it would make Amazon the city's largest office occupier, according to the Toronto-based paper.
When the e-commerce titan pulled out of its deal to place 25,000 employees in the Long Island City neighborhood of Queens for Amazon HQ2, it announced its intention to redistribute those jobs across cities where it already had a presence, specifically singling out Denver, San Francisco and Vancouver, CNBC reported.
Though the two above leases represent its first major expansion in Vancouver since that time, Amazon already occupies nearly 200K SF across two open office buildings, plus additional space at several WeWork locations in the city, the Daily Hive reports.
