Amazon Moving Entire Worldwide Operations Team From Seattle to Bellevue
5th April 2019
Voting with their feet.
The company’s strained relations with Seattle became very public last year, when the City Council passed a head tax that would have cost Amazon and other large companies about $275 per employee, per year, for the next five years.
The council quickly rescinded the tax after Amazon and other businesses protested, but Amazon soon after signaled it was abandoning earlier plans to occupy all 722,000 square feet of office space in the mammoth Rainier Square skyscraper under construction in Seattle. Instead, Amazon is subleasing the space to other businesses.
When asked if he’d push for a head tax for Amazon and other tech firms in Bellevue, Chelminiak said, “We are not planning any head tax in Bellevue.”