Thursday, May 13, 2010

Amazon.com Starting to Move Into New Global Headquarters


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Photo & Text Copyright 2009 Seattle Daily Photo. All rights reserved, including reproduction or republishing.
As promised, here are photos of the many buildings under construction for the new headquarters of the giant online purveyor of nearly everything, Amazon.com. The 11 building campus is taking shape along four blocks in the South Lake Union / Cascade neighborhood. The neighborhood's skyline has developed rapidly in the the past few years with the vision of developing it as a hub for biomedical research and internet technology industries. Amazon.com developed a highly successful system for electronic retail purchasing and direct shipping that is used by many retailers.

The campus is on the two year old Seattle Streetcar route and faces Lake Union Park (under final stages of development to the left in this image), the Center for Wooden Boats and the Navel Reserve Building seen in the foreground of this image I took of earlier progress on the Amazon campus. 
The top photo below shows the northernmost buildings of the campus, and the next photo shows the buildings going up on the blocks south of that. The final shot shows the other side of the buildings in yesterday's photo. Amazon.com is a major employer in Seattle and began last month to move workers into the three buildings of the completed first phase of the campus on Terry Street (here's local neighborhood coverage and a photo of the public plaza and tile art by local artist Ann Gardner). The completed phase is visible in the foreground of the second photo below. As the next two phases are completed I imagine all of Amazon's  Seattle workforce will leave their leased spaces in Beacon Hill and the International District and elsewhere will move to the new global headquarters, slated to have phase 3 completed in 2013.




























8 comments:

Louis la Vache said...

It's too bad the buildings are all of the "Stacked Ice Cube Tray" school of architecture.

Anonymous said...

I'm sorry I've supported Amazon all these years. What is it, a prison?

brattcat said...

I, too, am surprised by their architectural choices.

Unknown said...

Hmmm I expected better of Amazon.

Janet said...

Hello Kim - one of my sons is somewhere in this maze. I visited his office when he was down in the International District but this new location is still to be explored.

Karen said...

Now that is UGLY! Army gray and prison design. WHAT were they thinking?!

Anonymous said...

If you think this is prison, you should have looked at the inside the the previous HQ building in Beacon Hills neighborhood. I suffered for full 8 months, before I quit :(

Unknown said...

I'd rather have had John Hinterberger's Seattle Commons