Seattle-based e-commerce behemoth Amazon continues to expand its Canadian footprint after signing new leases in downtown Toronto.
This month, Amazon has taken an additional 100,000 square feet in two buildings in the south part of Toronto’s financial district: 18 York Street and 120 Bremner Boulevard -- which are located in the Southcore Financial Centre. The tech giant already has office space in both of these buildings.
Amazon confirmed to Toronto storeys the company has now leased three new floors at 18 York Street and two new floors at 120 Bremner Boulevard and with occupancy of the new spaces is slated for 2022.
READ: Amazon Opening Two New Fulfillment Centres, Creating 2,500 Jobs in GTHA
The announcement of the new office spaces comes after Amazon said in late September it would be opening two new fulfillment centres in Ajax and Hamilton and five new delivery stations in Kitchener, Stoney Creek, Vaughan, Etobicoke, and Scarborough.
Amazon said the new fulfillment centres are anticipated to open in 2021 and would create more than 2,500 new, full-time jobs with competitive hourly wages, comprehensive benefits and an industry-leading workplace (though recent reporting from The Star suggests safety is a big issue at some of these fulfillment centres). This will bring Amazon’s total to 10 fulfillment centres in Ontario and 16 in Canada.
Amazon's expansion comes during an unprecedented time when COVID-19 has forced major corporations to rethink their office needs, with top executives shutting down offices and allowing employees to work from home. As a result, the work-from-home trend has taken off.
In the height of the pandemic, CEO of Canadian-based Shopify Tobi Lutke announced that the global company -- which offers an e-commerce platform for online stores and retail point-of-sale systems -- would be keeping its offices closed until 2021, giving the company time to “rework” them for this “new reality.”
At the time, Lutke said that even once the company’s offices reopen, most employees will permanently work remotely. The company has over one million businesses in about 175 countries with a total gross merchandise volume exceeding $41.1 billion.
