Amazon is poised to lease a massive new office in the Seaport District and hire at least 2,000 more employees in Boston over the next few years, Mayor Martin J. Walsh said Tuesday. If the deal closes as expected, it would nearly triple the e-commerce giant’s workforce in Boston and Cambridge, and make the company one of the region’s biggest private employers.
According to documents filed with the city this week, Amazon is in negotiations to rent a building in the planned Seaport Square project along Congress Street, with an option to lease a second neighboring building for more growth. Developer WS Development said it could start construction on the first building this summer, and have it ready in 2021.
While the expansion is not Amazon’s so-called second headquarters — that prize is still being sought by Boston and other cities around the country — the project has the potential to make Boston one of Amazon’s largest outposts beyond the company’s Seattle base, and further boost the city’s already robust tech economy.
If Amazon fills both buildings, it would be able to add as many as 4,000 jobs in Boston over the next several years in the heart of the booming Seaport District. Most of the well-paying positions likely would be in technology-related areas such as robotics, cloud computing, and voice-activated systems.
Read Complete Article