Amazon.com has inked deals for 439,000 square feet of office space for tech hubs in Santa Monica, Irvine and San Diego.
The Seattle-based ecommerce firm signed the leases to accommodate 2,500 new corporate and technology jobs in Southern California, the Los Angeles Times reported. It said its new offices will open by the middle of next year, and the workers will be hired through 2025.
“These 2,500 new jobs include roles building cloud infrastructure, improving the Alexa experience and designing cutting edge video games,” said Holly Sullivan, Amazon’s vice president of worldwide economic development.
The leases bring Amazon’s office footprint in Southern California to more than 1.5 million square feet, representing an increase of more than 40 percent.
The retailer said it opened 15 sites in Southern California last year and added 17,000 jobs statewide, bringing the total Amazon workforce in California to 170,000. Amazon doubled its logistics network during the pandemic and is currently the second-largest private employer in the U.S. with 1.62 million workers.
Its largest new lease is in Santa Monica, where Amazon has signed a deal to rent a 200,000-square-foot space at the Water Garden at 1620 26th St.
The park-like business center, linked by meandering waterways about two miles from the beach, now houses Amazon Studios, software giant Oracle and video game creator Naughty Dog. The additional Amazon offices are expected to open in mid-2023 and serve more than 1,000 workers.
In Orange County, Amazon leased 116,000 square feet of office space at Spectrum Terrace, at 17300 Laguna Canyon Rd. in Irvine. The site will serve about 800 new employees.
The modern complex, part of a 73-acre office park being built by the Irvine Co., is expected to open next year, with amenities that include an Olympic-size pool.
In San Diego, the company signed a lease for a 123,000-square-foot space at University Town Center, to serve about 700 new employees. The space will open in early 2023, adding to the 1,000 employees now working at Amazon’s San Diego tech hub.
Amazon said it plans to recruit locally for jobs in retail, operations, gaming and web services, and was looking for software development engineers, game designers and user experience designers to fill the office space.
The three offices are the latest among many that Amazon has opened over the last two years to handle a surge in demand from homebound consumers during the pandemic.
Last week, the company acknowledged a hiring spree has left it with too many workers and too much warehouse space as it reported a $3.8-billion quarterly loss.
[Los Angeles Times] – Dana Bartholomew
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