Amazon.com Seekiing Additional Office Space in South Lake Union

Less than a year after breaking ground on a new campus in South Lake Union, Amazon.com is lookng for 320,000 square feet in additional office space in the area, according to real estate brokers familiar with the area’s market. . If true, that would be a rare bit of good news in an otherwise depressed commercial real estate market.

Amazon has already contracted for 1.6 million square feet of office space in 10 buildings on six blocks in South Lake Union. Construction is under way and will be completed in 2012. Amazon will begin moving into some of the buildings in 2010. Amazon will not reveal the total number of employees it has in Seattle. But the space for which it has already contracted would house an estimated 8,000 employees. If Amazon is looking for additional space, that suggests the company is growing faster than it had originally forecast. That’s good news for the depressed commercial real estate sector as well as for the many condos built to serve the new development.