Amazon’s notice on local employee layoffs reveals where the secretive e-commerce giant has been working

BY CARA EISENPRESS AND C. J. HUGHES

Atiny fraction of Amazon’s mass layoffs will affect New York workers this spring, according to a notice the company filed with the state. But the job losses come at a sensitive time for landlords trying to hang on to each and every tenant.

Of the 18,000 workers that the Seattle-based behemoth earlier this month announced plans to release, 299 are located here—less than 2%.

The news comes from a mandatory “dislocated worker” notice filed with the state. Many of the affected employees work in cloud computing, artificial intelligence and online advertising, the notice said.

Amazon declined to share specifics about the location of the local teams. But it did reveal that the job losses are spread among seven Manhattan locations, which represent hundreds of thousands of square feet of office space. Hollowing out the offices could have implications for their landlords, including CIM Group, Vornado Realty Trust and SL Green Realty, which recently have faced other vacancies.

Pinpointing those offices also pulls back the curtain on a company that has often been less than forthcoming about its holdings.

From a real estate perspective, 1440 Broadway seems to have the most to lose from Amazon’s news.

Of the 299 employees being cut, 243 work at the 25-story prewar office building at West 40th Street, which CIM bought in 2017 for $520 million, records show. WeWork, the beleaguered coworking provider, appears to be the main tenant in the tower, with 236,000 square feet across seven floors. A question sent to a CIM spokesman about whether Amazon’s employees are leasing WeWork’s desks was not returned by press time.

No. 1440 does not ever seem to have been publicly identified as an Amazon workplace.

Another affected site is 7 West 34th St., which will lose 38 employees, according to the notice. A 477,000-square-foot former department store owned by Vornado, 7 West 34th was among Amazon’s earliest New York locations and also the site of one of its short-lived forays into brick-and-mortar retailing.

An Amazon bookstore opened in a ground-floor space in 2017 but closed last spring. As of about a decade ago, Amazon also reportedly controlled 11 upper floors of the building and today is listed as its single office tenant in Vornado marketing materials. Vornado had no comment.

Amazon also apparently has a presence at 1350 Sixth Ave., a 600,000-square-foot postwar office building at West 55th Street, even though owner SL Green does not name the company on its website. Named tenants include Casdin Capital, KPMG and Raines Feldman. Two Amazon employees were laid off at the location.

Last year Amazon reportedly retreated from plans to expand at 5 Manhattan West, a two-block-long former industrial building at 450 W. 33rd St. owned by Brookfield Properties. In 2017 Amazon signed a 360,000-square-foot, 15-year lease across two floors at the Hudson Yards site.

Other office properties that will soon have slightly smaller Amazon footprints include 410 10th Ave., where the company leased 335,000 square feet in 2019, the same year it bailed on its second headquarters in Long Island City. A handful of employees will lose their jobs there too, Amazon said. SL Green sold the 638,000-squarefoot prewar building in 2020 to 601W Cos. for $953 million.

Amazon also has offices at 950 Sixth Ave. and 37 E. 18th St., according to the filing. Each location is shedding a worker.

Workplace culture

AMAZON’S MANHATTAN FOOTPRINT

Recently announced layoffs will be spread across the tech giant’s real estate portfolio.

Some Amazon locations so far appear unaffected, such as 424 Fifth Ave., the former Lord & Taylor department store in Midtown. Amazon bought it for $978 million in March 2020, as the Covid-19 pandemic began slamming New York, with plans to open the 630,000-square-foot building as an office by this year.

The recent filing also provides a glimpse of Amazon’s workplace culture. Employees in New York appear to work for teams named for area airports, perhaps to emphasize the company’s shipping prowess. Every Manhattan office is designated internally as either an “LGA” or “JFK.” One of the few LinkedIn posts written by a local laid-off Amazon worker came from Brooke Colbus, a recruiter and trainer. “This is something I was preparing for since November,” she wrote. “But the confirmation itself makes it sting hard right now.”

The layoffs are scheduled to take effect April 18. ■