Columbus is often mistakenly referred to as a “college town” under the assumption that the population of The Ohio State University dominates the city’s total population (it actually only makes up around seven percent). Instead, a new article in the Seattle Times provides a different kind on moniker… “Company Town”.
According to the article, Seattle is the largest Company Town in the United States based on the singular dominance that Amazon has on the city’s pool of office space. Based on both percentage of office space (19.2%) and total amount of space (8.1 million square feet), Amazon’s presence in Seattle blows all other Company Towns out of the water.
Except for one.
“Among the country’s largest 20 cities, only Columbus, Ohio — where insurer Nationwide occupies 16 percent of office space — has a situation comparable in its dominance to Amazon,” wrote article authors Mike Rosenberg and Ángel González. “But it’s still less than half of Amazon’s total square footage.”
In 2016, Nationwide Insurance began the process of relocating 3,600 employees from suburban campuses into 500,000 square feet of new office spaces in the Grandview Yard development in Grandview Heights. Nationwide Insurance has approximately 10,000 employees working at their headquarters in Downtown Columbus.
To read the full article, visit www.seattletimes.com.