Luxury DC Apartment Building Replaces Front Desk Staff With Amazon Lockers, Sparking Tenant Protest 

Tenants of a luxury apartment building blocks from the White House were furious this week after they discovered the building’s management company fired all front desk workers and replaced them with Amazon delivery lockers.

Journalist Samuel Breslow of the media outlet The Forward wrote on X about tenants of CityCenterDC, a mixed-use development consisting of two condominium buildings, two rental apartment buildings, two office buildings, and a luxury hotel, on 10th St NW, or about a five-minute walk to the White House, “protested the surprise decision to fire front desk staff, replacing them with Amazon delivery lockers.”

Tenants of the @CityCenterDC luxury apartments are protesting a surprise decision to fire front desk staff, replacing them with Amazon/@minnowpod delivery lockers.@Hines management prepared a presentation to try to appease; they didn’t get beyond the first slide.#CityCenterDC pic.twitter.com/Zx4wK0Ov8I

— Samuel Breslow (@sdkb42) April 23, 2024

The building described the move to replace human workers with Amazon lockers as a “technology advancement aimed at enriching your stay.” 

Apartments.com shows that CityCenterDC’s rent ranges from $2,500 a month for a studio to $15,300 for a luxury apartment. 

On Instagram, user washingtonianprobs posted Breslow’s story. Folks there weren’t thrilled: 

“All the crime and violence goin around the last thing they should do is leave the front desk unattended,” one Instagram user said. 

Someone asked: “How did the property management company think that replacing the front desk ppl with lockers is the same?”

“Goes to show how disconnected they are with people outside of their status. They don’t realize that replacing front desk staff with storgage boxes is taking away jobs from people and altering folks livelihood,” another user said.

 For ZH readers, this example of AI automation job loss is not surprising. Recall this Goldman note: “AI Will Lead To 300 Million Layoffs In The US And Europe.”