The Los Angeles office market has been on the upswing since 2013 and showed no sign of stalling in the second quarter as tech and entertainment firms continue to expand into new space.

Developers are responding to the demand by building new offices that are often rented long before they are completed, which was unusual during previous real estate cycles when tenants typically waited to see finished buildings before making commitments. — The Los Angeles Times

Amazon boss Jeff Bezos is the richest person in the world with a current net worth of $125 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaire Index. And he’s investing much of his Amazon fortune in the development of space technologies through his aerospace company Blue Origin.

Why? “Because I think it’s important,” Bezos tells Norah O’Donnell of CBS Evening News in an interview which aired Tuesday. — CBS News

Amazon has increasingly turned to robots and automation technology to fetch products from the shelves of its warehouses to ship to customers. Now the company says it needs to help its workers adapt to the rapid change.

The e-commerce giant said on Thursday that it planned to spend $700 million to retrain a third of its workers in the United States, an acknowledgment that advances in technology are remaking the role of workers in nearly every industry. — The New York Times

Now, in 2019, Jeff Bezos wants his private space company to take over the public imagination about life in space. Bezos is the head of a retail empire, and he knows how to sell an image, but what he’s offering today is a watered-down version of nostalgia for yesterday’s future. Bezos’s proposal is a version of O’Neill’s project that somehow manages to look and feel less futuristic than its predecessor. — CityLab

The buildings, which resemble glass jars, preserve an image of Amazon’s supposed benevolence as a company and an image of neoliberal capital as growth, as opposed to absence and austerity... Amazon’s decision to abandon plans for its New York–based HQ2 still fresh in everyone’s mind, it’s hard to see The Spheres as anything but an oversized swear jar brimming with half-hearted promises and watery intensions. — Los Angeles Review of Books

Amazon, the giant online retailer, is closing all 87 of its U.S. pop-up kiosks, which let customers try and buy gadgets such as smart speakers and tablets in malls, Kohl's department stores, and Whole Foods groceries. It's the latest change in Amazon's bricks-and-mortar retail strategy, which includes bookstores, grocery stores, and cashier-less stores. — NPR

Amazon is abandoning a prominent downtown Seattle office project 10 months after it threatened to do so if the city imposed a new business tax. [...]

Amazon confirmed Wednesday it will not occupy the 722,000 square feet it had leased in the Rainier Square tower under construction at Fifth Avenue and Union Street. The lease was one of the biggest in Seattle history — enough space to hold at least 3,500 employees and perhaps up to 5,000. — Seattle Times

Amazon on Thursday canceled its plans to build an expansive corporate campus in New York City after facing an unexpectedly fierce backlash from some lawmakers and unions, who contended that a tech giant did not deserve nearly $3 billion in government incentives.

The company, as part of its extensive search for a new headquarters, had chosen Long Island City, Queens, as one of two winning sites, saying that it would create more than 25,000 jobs in the city. — The New York Times

All eyes have been on Long Island City since its partial triumph in Amazon’s urban beauty pageant. [...]

Queens native Kris Graves has kept his eye on Long Island City continuously since moving there ten years ago. Photographing what presents itself outside his door in Hunters Point South and as he walks around the neighborhood, Graves never intended to create a record of a vanishing scene (RIP 5Pointz notwithstanding). Instead, his photos, accumulating over time, represent an additive process. — Urban Omnibus

Amazon could be a new tenant in the Chrysler Building, already increasing its upcoming presence in New York.

The tech giant, which is bringing half of its second headquarters to Long Island City, is close to signing a lease for about 10,000 square feet in the famed property, according to the New York Post. The building’s owners, Tishman Speyer and Abu Dhabi Investment Council, are putting the landmark tower at Lexington Avenue and East 42nd Street up for sale. — The Real Deal

For years, suburbia has offered these companies acres of disposable, cheap, anonymous office parks: mostly one- or two-story concrete structures surrounded by loads of surface parking. These sites minimized costs, maximized security and allowed companies to scale up, contract or split into different units quickly — at the same time they promoted sprawl and traffic jams and transformed once-quaint bedroom communities south of San Francisco into phenomenally expensive places to live. — The New York Times

Officials lured Amazon to New York with an extensive pitch, complete with four suggested neighborhoods. In exchange for 25,000 new jobs, Gov. Cuomo and Mayor de Blasio are offering Amazon nearly $3 billion in incentives. And while Amazon selected the Queens neighborhood of Long Island City as its new home, officials had proposed bringing Amazon’s campus to the Farley Building, 3 World Trade Center, Brooklyn Height’s Watchtower building, Bjarke Ingels’ The Spiral, and even Governors Island. — 6sqft

One of ARO’s two concepts shows a huge white building emblazoned with the Amazon logo. [...] It’s a never-ending fulfillment center that the architects dub “Continuous Fulfillment.” According to ARO principals Adam Yarinsky and Stephen Cassell, the idea is an homage to a 1969 concept from the Italian radical architecture firm Superstudio called “The Continuous Monument.” The idea posits that technology will render the built environment uniform, turning buildings into white monoliths. — Fast Company