Amazon again expands in Bellevue with lease of two future towers

This is a story you may feel like you’ve read recently, but it’s new again: Amazon is expanding in Bellevue in a big way.

Earlier this month, news emerged that the company – which already had two major leases downtown – was renting space in a third building with plans to occupy a fourth after it opens, bringing its plans to 1 million square feet in Bellevue.

Then just last week, Amazon spent $195 million to buy an office mid-rise and development site, where it could build as much as 1.2 million additional square feet.

Now, Dallas-based Trammell Crow Company said Monday that it has signed Amazon to lease an entire two-tower office development it has planned in downtown Bellevue. That project is another 715,000 square feet.

Mike Nelson, managing director of Trammell Crow’s Seattle division, said in a statement that Amazon had signed long-term leases for the future 15-story towers at Northeast 10th Street and 106th Avenue Northeast. The 2.6-acre site houses a former Cadillac dealership, which would be demolished.

Trammell Crow expects to start building the project, called the Binary Towers, this summer and open the buildings in the first quarter of 2022, Nelson said.

An Amazon spokesman confirmed the lease Monday. The company earlier this month disclosed that several thousand jobs in its worldwide operations group would be moving from Seattle to Bellevue over the course of the next four years. “Our vision is to create an urban campus in downtown Bellevue where employees will all be within walking distance of each other and have easy access to public transit,” Dave Clark, Amazon senior vice president of worldwide operations, said in an email to employees  April 3.

All six of Amazon’s known current and future offices in Bellevue will be within a short walk of one another.

The company still has the majority of its local space in the city of Seattle – 12 million square feet, with another 2 million under construction. But it’s recently begun eyeing Bellevue, a closer commute for some of its employees and potential workers on the Eastside. Company officials have also praised the city for a “business-friendly environment.”

The Puget Sound Business Journal first reported the lease Monday afternoon.