Amazon is extending its recent streak of high-profile real estate deals as the tech giant scrambles to house all of its corporate employees in the aftermath of its return-to-office mandate.
The Seattle-based firm is expanding its partnership with coworking operator WeWork to add roughly 141,000 square feet to its Silicon Valley footprint, the two parties confirmed. The deal will result in Amazon occupying the entirety of the building at 4980 Great America Parkway in Santa Clara, California, underscoring the company's broader real estate plans as it demands its workers commute to a physical hub for a full, five-day workweek.
"We're constantly evaluating our office footprint based on the needs of Amazon's businesses," an Amazon spokesperson said in a statement to CoStar News.
The agreement is similar to others the company has made with WeWork for offices elsewhere in the tech-concentrated San Francisco Bay Area, as well as in New York City, Dallas and Nashville, Tennessee. The coworking company signs on for space that it then operates on Amazon's behalf, an arrangement that makes it possible for companies to quickly expand their real estate holdings while keeping some level of flexibility to accommodate future changes.
WeWork signed the full-building deal with the Sobrato Organization, the Great America Parkway property's landlord and original developer, late last month, according to Colliers brokers involved in the agreement. The lease will take effect within the next couple of weeks. Once occupied, the 2000s-era building will be the latest addition to Amazon's already vast network of office spaces across the Silicon Valley area.
Amazon and WeWork's latest arrangement closely follows similar deals the two have made over the past several months.
WeWork signed one of Manhattan's largest office leases of 2024 when it took about 304,000 square feet in December at 330 W. 34th St. on Amazon's behalf. Several weeks later, the coworking company signed a deal for the entire 217,000 square-foot building at 401 San Antonio Road in Mountain View, California, also for Amazon to fill and expand its regional office portfolio.
Appetite for space
The expansion coincides with a series of real estate moves Amazon has made to accommodate the return of its workforce to a complete workweek.
The company last year unveiled plans to ditch its pandemic-era flexibility with a new mandate that, for many workers, took effect Jan. 2. However, Amazon had to postpone that date for some of its workers after realizing it didn't have enough office space to adequately house everyone full time.
Workers in cities such as Dallas, Phoenix, Atlanta and New York were told their return dates would be pushed by at least four months beyond the company's initial return-to-office deadline.
While a majority of its workers returned to an Amazon office at the beginning of the year as scheduled, a spokesperson previously told CoStar News that, for some locations, "there may be different timelines."
The WeWork arrangements have accounted for a large slice of Amazon's office real estate growth since the retailer unveiled its return-to-office plans in September 2024. Yet the company has also ventured on its own to sign leases or acquire properties, many of which have shattered records in terms of sizing, pricing or a combination of the two.
The company last month paid $456 million to acquire the nearly 641,000-square-foot building at 522 Fifth Ave. near some of its other Manhattan hubs. The deal marked Amazon's first office purchase since 2020 and closed within weeks of the retail giant's 330,000-square-foot lease at 10 Bryant Park, one of New York City's largest leases so far this year.
Amazon also signed one of the largest office leases in Miami's Wynwood area with a deal in January to take on more than 50,000 square feet in the Wynwood Plaza building. The company had been searching for its own South Florida office outpost for about a year after it had been occupying space in a WeWork location in Coral Gables.