
Amazon Is Expanding its Presence in Boston and Vancouver With New Offices

Amazon announced this week that it was opening new offices and expanding its footprints in the North American tech hubs of Boston and Vancouver. While neither of these announcements represents the highly anticipated selection of a site for the e-commerce giant’s second headquarters (Boston is on the list of 20 finalists; Vancouver is not), both plans envision creating several thousand jobs and stand to have an appreciable impact on the local talent and housing markets in these cities.
The Boston Globe‘s Tim Logan reported on Tuesday’s announcement of a new facility in Seaport Square, a major new development in the South Boston Waterfront neighborhood, which will be primarily dedicated to developing its voice-activated Alexa technology, along with cloud computing and robotics—already focal points of Amazon’s existing offices in the highly-educated city:
The company has long based much of its Alexa and Audible teams at a growing office in Kendall Square, and has beefed up its Amazon Web Services and robotics development teams here in recent years. Its new building, set to begin construction later this year and open in 2021, would mark the company’s biggest presence to date, and comes as Amazon opens a new office in nearby Fort Point.
Along with an office in the Back Bay, a robotics facility in North Reading and a massive distribution center in Fall River, the company has added 3,500 jobs in Massachusetts since 2011, with these 2,000 more to come. They have an option for a second building — with room for 2,000 more jobs — at Seaport Square should they want to expand further.
Amazon is also opening a new office in Vancouver, one of Canada’s primary tech hubs and a short hop from the company’s Seattle headquarters. Taylor Soper covered the news for GeekWire: