As Colorado awaits Amazon’s decision on where to plunk down a second headquarters, the Seattle company on Thursday said that it is moving its Boulder advertising team into more spacious quarters at 1900 15th St., near the Pearl Street Mall.
The company, which told The Colorado Sun it already has “dozens of Amazonians who support our advertising business” in Boulder, plans to continue hiring to fill up the 37,000-square foot, three-story office. Amazon currently has more than 100 job openings in the Denver-Boulder region, though not all are for the advertising team.
“The design of our new office is inspired by Boulder itself, with climbing elements throughout,” said Erin Mulhall, with Amazon. “Starting with a ‘basecamp’ level that provides a game room and collaborative workspace for our employees, the office rises three additional floors filled with open workspaces, views of the Flatirons, and a center atrium that comes together to form a peak at the ceiling.”
Between Boulder and Denver, Amazon said it employs more than 250 people in advertising jobs, tech roles or other corporate positions. Another 2,250 or so work in Amazon’s local warehouses. That includes about 1,000 people recently hired for Amazon’s distribution center in Thornton, its first in the state with robots helping humans fill orders.
Amazon opened the advertising office in Boulder in July 2017. That wasn’t unexpected since the area is known for housing regional offices of major advertising technology companies, including Google and Twitter.
And if state officials know something about whether Denver, one of 20 finalists, is advancing in the HQ2 competition, they’re not saying.
“We have no new updates we can provide publicly on Amazon HQ2,” said Sam Bailey, the vice president at Metro Denver Economic Development Corp., which is handling the state’s bid.
That very-public competition turns 1-year old on Sept. 7.
This story first appeared in The Colorado Sun’s newsletter, The Sunriser. You can subscribe here: cosun.co/thesunriser