Amazon has named Seattle architect Shannon Loew as the e-commerce giant's new vice president of worldwide corporate real estate and facilities.

John Schoettler, who has overseen Amazon’s global real estate portfolio for more than two decades, hired Loew as a vice president for Amazon, which controls one of the world's largest office and industrial portfolios, Amazon spokesperson Zach Goldsztejn confirmed in an email.

The Puget Sound Business Journal, citing a source with direct knowledge of the situation, said Loew's hiring is the start of a transition that will eventually end with the retirement of Schoettler, 64.

Loew, who joined Amazon last month, will report to Schoettler, who remains chief of the company’s vast real estate operations under the title of vice president of global corporate real estate and facilities, Goldsztejn said.

Asked whether Lowe's hiring is part of a succession plan for Schoettler, Goldsztejn replied in a statement that it's typical for leaders such as Schoettler to expand their leadership bench as their business and scope grows.

Loew's hiring come during a turbulent period for Amazon, which has announced thousands of job cuts and decreased its global real estate footprint.

Amazon and other technology companies scrambled to expand operations to keep up with pandemic-era growth before being forced to make job cuts and slow the expansion of its real estate holdings last year as the economy has slowed. The company has offloaded office and industrial properties in greater Seattle, the San Francisco Bay Area and other cities.

Loew, a Harvard-educated architect, in 2008 founded FIX Impact Development, a Seattle real estate design firm that merges architecture with public policy and strategic management projects.

At FIX, he drafted land-use policies for cities, guided strategy for urban redevelopment projects, launched affordable housing operation projects and designed products for the construction industry, according to his online resume.

Prior to that, Loew was an architect at San Francisco-based architecture firm IDEO, where he designed projects for global businesses in the hospitality, retail, food and beverage, apparel and natural resources industries.

Loew also served on the Seattle Design Commission from 2011 to 2017, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Schoettler has led the development of Amazon’s high-rise campus near downtown Seattle and overseen the development of the company’s HQ2 in Northern Virginia, as well as its extensive office and industrial portfolio across the globe.