OpenAI is placing a bigger bet on the Seattle region, signing a massive new lease in Bellevue as the ChatGPT-maker expands near the headquarters of two key corporate cloud partners.
The company is taking an additional ten floors at City Center Plaza in downtown Bellevue, boosting its footprint to 296,000 square feet, according to sources familiar with the matter. OpenAI previously occupied two floors in the building. It’s one of the largest AI company leases in the region.
The San Francisco-based company now has room for more than 1,000 employees at the office, based on typical commercial real estate standards. OpenAI, which arrived in Bellevue in 2024, currently employs more than 300 people in the Seattle area, according to LinkedIn data — up from around 169 in September.
The office gives OpenAI a large hub just a short drive from Microsoft’s Redmond headquarters campus and within a few blocks of Amazon’s expanding Bellevue towers, tightening its ties with both cloud giants.
Microsoft has invested billions of dollars in OpenAI and serves as its primary strategic partner, providing the Azure cloud infrastructure that underpins many of OpenAI’s models and products.
At the same time, OpenAI has deepened its relationship with Amazon, inking a $38 billion cloud deal in November. Amazon is reportedly in talks to invest up to $50 billion in OpenAI as part of a new investment round.
Microsoft previously occupied a majority of the 26-floor City Center Plaza building but said in 2023 that it would not renew its lease. The building is adjacent to a light rail station that will offer transit connection to Seattle starting in March.
CoStar reported on OpenAI’s expansion earlier this week.
OpenAI recently acquired Seattle startup Statsig for $1 billion. The company is also reportedly gearing up for an IPO.
The Wall Street Journal reported that OpenAI is paying employees “more than any tech startup in recent history,” with the average stock-based compensation set around $1.5 million per person at the company, which has around 4,000 employees.
OpenAI now has one of the largest offices among out-of-town tech companies with satellite engineering centers across the Seattle region. Meta, Google, Apple, and other Silicon Valley giants have substantial footprints in the area, which boasts one of the world’s top technical talent pools. OpenAI rival Anthropic opened an office in Seattle two years ago and is hiring.
Seattle has the most AI engineers in the U.S. behind Silicon Valley, according to a 2024 report from venture capital firm SignalFire.
OpenAI’s new lease also reflects a growing role for the Eastside in the AI boom. Many technology companies have signed new or expanded leases in and around Bellevue recently, including Snap, Anduril, Shopify, Snowflake, Walmart, and Chewy. Uber and Databricks are filling the city’s newest office tower, according to the Puget Sound Business Journal.
Vacancy rates still remain high in downtown Bellevue, reaching 25.4% at the end of last year, according to Broderick Group.
That’s still not as high as downtown Seattle, where vacancy rates hit a record high in Q4, up to 34.7%, according to CBRE.
“Notably, a growing number of new-to-market entrants … are choosing the Eastside over Seattle, drawn by Bellevue’s modern office inventory, business friendly climate and skilled technology workforce,” Broderick noted in its Q4 report.
