The final preparations for New Year's Eve are underway at the Space Needle, with crews hard at work putting pyrotechnics and lights all over the tower.

Will other companies follow Amazon’s lead? That’s a key question for the future of downtown Seattle as the tech giant brings workers back to the office five days a week, as part of a new mandate that goes into effect Thursday.

In 2021, Amazon created a policy that allowed leaders to determine how their teams worked. Then, last year, the tech giant asked all employees to come back to the office three days per week. At the time,