The office footprint for Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) is twice as expansive as it was just three years ago. The company owned and leased more than 40 million square feet across the globe as of December, according to an SEC filing released Friday. In 2016 that number stood at just over 19 million.
Despite that growth, a deep dive into the numbers suggests that the company may be pumping the brakes on new leases. It may also be trending in favor of owning, something that will be repeated as Amazon opens massive office buildings at its second headquarters in Arlington.
Leases still dominate the portfolio. More than half of Amazon’s office space, about 23 million square feet in 2019, is in North America and roughly 18 million of that is leased. But the company leased only 1.4 million square feet in the U.S. last year — its lowest increase since 2016. The previous two years Amazon increased leased office space by about 4 million square feet.
Amazon’s owned office space in 2019 jumped…
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