Jef Bezos and his wife, MacKenzie Scott, drove from New York City to Seattle to start Amazon.com in a rented garage. They stayed there and made Washington’s biggest city the headquarters for the world’s biggest online retailer.
Later on, the company grew, and as part of its expansion, it set up a second headquarters on the East Coast.
Here’s where Amazon’s two different headquarters are located and how many people work at each one.
Where is Amazon’s headquarters?
The area of Amazon’s first and original headquarters, which it describes as Puget Sound, in Washington state, consists of office buildings spread out in Seattle and neighboring cities, Bellevue and Redmond.
The center of Amazon’s headquarters is the 37-story Day 1 building in downtown Seattle, and its workspaces offer views of Puget Sound, Lake Union, and the iconic Space Needle. The building takes its name from Amazon’s Day 1 motto, which was first introduced in founder Jeff Bezos’ 1997 Letter to Shareholders, to focus on customers, prioritize long-term value over short-term corporate profit, and take risks.
As part of an expansion plan, Amazon set up a second headquarters, known as Metropolitan Park, in Arlington, Virginia.
Why did Amazon set up a second headquarters in Virginia?
Amazon continued to grow its online commerce and set its sights on new businesses, and in 2017, it decided to develop a second headquarters outside Seattle to accommodate its rapidly growing workforce. In 2018, it created a shortlist of 20 cities, including New York City, Austin, Texas, and Toronto, Canada, but eventually settled on Arlington, Virginia.
Arlington was selected for a variety of reasons, including the ease of doing business, quality of life, transportation, and access to tech talent, where it can draw from Northern Virginia’s pool of computer science graduates, according to Arlington Economic Development.
Construction of the Arlington headquarters, known as HQ2 or Metropolitan Park, was to be conducted in two phases. Phase 1 began in early 2020 and opened to employees in May 2023. From 2023, work on Phase 2 of the site, nicknamed PenPlace, was temporarily suspended.
How many people work at Amazon’s headquarters?
The Day 1 office building reportedly can hold 1,800 employees. However, the broader Seattle headquarters are home to more than 45,000 workers, according to Candor, a financial wellness platform.
In Arlington, the Metropolitan Park office towers house as many as 14,000 employees
What are the features of Amazon’s headquarters?
The 37-story Day 1 building has 1 million square feet of space and sits on 83,000 square feet of land, according to Seneca Group, which managed the building’s development. The building — completed in 2017 — also includes about 9,000 square feet of retail space and 6.5 floors of underground parking. A group of glass-and-steel spherical structures is situated at the base of the building.
Workers who commute by bike can also park their bicycles in what’s known as the bike cage — which has repair stations and charging stations for ebikes, according to a tour of the building by Amazon. Unlike many companies in the Fortune 500, at Amazon, employees are allowed to bring their dogs into the office.
Spatial amenities include a coffee shop and a cafeteria, many conference rooms for teams to meet, and soundproof phone booths.
At Metropolitan Park in Arlington, the two office towers feature 2.1 million square feet of office space, and at street level, 65,000 square feet of retail, public spaces, and more than half a mile of protected bike lanes. The complex also features art installations and rooftop dog terraces.
The two office towers were named “Jasper” and “Merlin” — former code names for Amazon projects, according to Arlington magazine.
Who designed and developed Amazon’s headquarters?
The Day 1 building in Seattle was designed by the global architecture firm NBBJ. The Seneca Group, also based in Seattle, developed the site for Amazon. When Amazon settled on Arlington for its HQ2 site, it called upon Seneca to support development of the project, and the group opened an office in Washington, D.C. in 2019.
ZGF Architects designed Metropolitan Park, while Clark Construction served as the general contractor over the development.
