Amazon’s workforce in downtown Vancouver will double with the opening of a new second corporate office building in the city.

The electronic commerce and cloud computing multinational giant announced today it will occupy a new nine-storey office building at the southwest corner of Dunsmuir Street and Homer Street.

It has signed a lease to the future building – located next to Holy Rosary Cathedral and the old Canada Post office building – being developed by Oxford Properties Group and designed by B + H Architects.

The new 150,000 sq. ft. office space will add 1,000 employees to the city, increasing Amazon’s local office workforce from 1,000 to 2,000.

The company already employs 1,000 people at its space in the nearby TELUS Garden office tower, which opened in 2015.

The Vancouver office currently works on software development, cloud computing, human resources, and fulfillment. Approximately 90% of the employees are software development engineers.

The announcement was made this morning during a press conference with locally elected leaders at the company’s TELUS Garden office.

“It’s a great day for the City of Vancouver,” said Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson. “We are thrilled to be an important city on Amazon’s world map and even more so moving forward.”

“Thanks for Amazon’s vote in confidence in Vancouver, for the partnership we have in all levels of government, and most of all to all the workers and people in the community who support this incredible growth and success. It’s something we don’t take for granted, we will work hard and smart to keep it going.”

Until the new office building is complete, Amazon is expected to meet its growing office space needs by temporarily occupying most of WeWork’s new office-sharing space at the Bentall III office building.

The new office building at 402 Dunsmuir Street is expected to be ready for occupancy in the first quarter of 2020.

In addition to its office employees, Amazon employs over 500 people at its fulfillment centres in Delta and New Westminster. Across the country, its Canadian workforce now stands at 5,000 full-time employees.

“Amazon is excited to continue growing our workforce throughout Canada,” said Alexandre Gagnon, Vice-President of Amazon Canada and Mexico. “We are among the largest employers of software engineers in Canada and look forward to continuing to create new job opportunities for Canadians

Vancouver is also one of the 238 urban regions in North America in the running for Amazon’s second global headquarters (HQ2). The regional bid for the $5-billion investment employing up to 50,000 people within eight million square feet was hand delivered to Amazon’s Seattle headquarters ahead of last month’s deadline. Amazon will announce the location of HQ2 next year.

See also