Potential site for Amazon’s fifth tower

For $19.2M, Amazon bought the property that holds the vacant Days Inn motel on Seventh Avenue. It is across the street from the building site of other Amazon properties, so it is easy to assume their growing campus has jumped the street to expand.

As Puget Sound Business Journal points out,

“City zoning allows non-residential towers up to 340 feet tall in the area.“

That’s a lot more floors than the motel had, meaning the densification continues. With this acquisition, Amazon could be adding a fifth tower. Finding room for their 35,000 employees, which is greater than the population of Issaquah.

As Geekwire reported,

“Amazon could soon cover roughly 10 million square feet in the city, which is about 25 percent of the total premium office space in downtown Seattle and enough room for more than 50,000 employees.“

The company decided for an urban rather than a suburban campus, partly for the urban culture, partly for the energy efficiency and lower environmental impact of an urban infrastructure. People prefer short and easy commutes, and shorter commutes tend to burn less fuel, cause less pollution, and cost less.

Growth in the city can’t sprawl, so it must climb; which it looks like Amazon is prepared to do again, even before the other buildings are completed. It is reasonable to wonder and speculate about where the sixth tower will go. And then the seventh?

• $19.2M deal suggests Amazon may build a fifth tower in downtown Seattle [PSBJ]
• Seattle mayor: Amazon’s huge employee growth is ‘a great problem to have’ [GW]