Outdoor giant REI plans a lush new headquarters complete with real campfires, but it goes on sale before it has a chance to open

08/15/2020 Business, Entertainment, Health, World




a group of people walking in front of a brick building: Robert Alexander / Getty Images

© Robert Alexander / Getty Images
Robert Alexander / Getty Images

  • REI left its new business campus to save money and encourage remote work among its employees.
  • The co-op now plans to have multiple locations for “headquarters” in the Seattle area and expects more employees to long for work at home.
  • While the Covid-19 pandemic is expanding traditional notions about offices, REI is just one of many companies struggling with long-term decisions about office space.
  • Visit the Business Insider website for more stories.

REI is bringing its brand new headquarters to the market, the company announced on Wednesday.

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The 82-year-old open cooperative left its eight-acre suburban Seattle campus in a bid to save money, and will encourage its 1,400 employees to work long-term remotely.

First planned in 2016, the expanded property was described as a “summer camp for adults.” The architectural firm that spanned the project, NBBJ, saw many outdoor spaces and special features such as campfire and even a forest field.

Rendering of the planned space revealed interiors that would be just as luxurious, with tables made of restored sequoia wood, window walls that open to interiors, and a fireplace in the foyer. The company even showed an ‘abundance of stairs’ that would ensure employees healthy movement during their working days.

Instead of the massive headquarters, REI opts for a decentralized approach. REI will now have multiple “headquarters” locations in the greater Seattle area, it said, and will normalize long-term work from home. The company says the move will give employees more flexibility and the company can reduce its carbon footprint.

“The dramatic events of 2020 have challenged us to re-examine and rethink all aspects of our business and many of the assumptions of the past. That includes where and how we work,” said REI President and CEO Eric Artz , in press release.

In the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, REI is far from the only company struggling with long-term office space decisions. Facebook and Google are letting employees go remote in the coming months, while L’Oreal is forcing workers to return to the office. Real estate and architectural firms are meanwhile redesigning office routes to be more pandemic-friendly by reducing the density of offices and creating one-way traffic through the building.

The sale will also bring much-needed cash to REI’s coffers. Despite an uptick in open gear sales as Americans seek social-life activities, the company cut 300 companies for jobs in April, saying it would cut 400 retail jobs in July. These changes, in addition to office sales, will help the company prepare for “the near-certainty of additional disruptions,” Artz wrote in the co-op’s newsletter this week.

Potential buyers for the property include Facebook, The Seattle Times reported.

Gallery: 5 new uses for empty malls, decimated by the apocalypse in retail and COVID-19, from health clinics to homeless shelters (Business Insider)

5 new uses for empty malls, decimated by the retail apocalypse and COVID-19, from health clinics to homeless shelters

Thanks to the retail apocalypse, the traditional American shopping center had already become a shell of its halcyon days before the pandemic hit. Now, the outbreak of coronavirus only accelerates the rate at which its empty carcasses litter the country.

In recent months, temporary closures and economic strife have caused an onslaught of bankruptcies and liquidations in the retail trade, and served as the possible nail in the coffin for companies that have already fled companies, ranging from traditional retail brands such as Lucky Brand, J.Crew, and New York & Company, to department stores such as JCPenney and Neiman Marcus.

If some of these retailers turn off their lights permanently, they will leave large quantities of empty real estate in their wake.

According to a recent report by real estate company Green Street Advisors, 60% of department store stores are expected to close permanently by 2021.. Furthermore, their research found that even malls and local malls with anchor stores – which have found success in recent years compared to their dying services in the department store – are expected to see declines in cash flow.

As the state of the U.S. shopping center continues to shrink at the hands of the apocalypse in retail and a global pandemic, experts and business experts have begun to speculate on what the future of these empty spaces might be. We have taken a closer look at some of their early hypotheses.

Logistics, fulfillment, and distribution centers

As e-commerce continues to flourish during the pandemic, retailers have already begun to transform empty retail fronts into retail and distribution centers. Experts said this is likely to continue within vacant malls.

According to Jordan Cohen – Chief Marketing Officer of What If Media Group, a provider of marketing services to major brands and retailers, there is a need for more logistics centers, especially in more remote areas of the US.

“There, retailers have an opportunity to grow their businesses and build brand loyalty by offering faster delivery of their products to consumers living in more rural areas than ‘parts of the country’ ‘. and also a rapid decline offering locations up to these consumers, ”Cohen told Business Insider.

He added that he does not expect physical retail to ever die, online shopping will just continue to increase, adding to the demand for these centers around the country.

“In-store shopping will not disappear – and there will be a place for brick-and-mortar markets in our future, and even today with reopening – but we expect more purchases to shift to e-commerce, and as a result, d “There will be less need for many retailers to have physical locations compared to distribution centers,” he said.

Apartment complexes and community centers

Several modern shopping malls found initial success in escaping multi-story buildings with escalators and food railings in favor of a layout of a city center with hybrid space for outside and inside and the integration of entertainment centers and delicious food. However, because these spaces are empty of retailers, Patrick Sisson of Bloomberg CityLab reports that they can serve as prime locations to install apartment complexes in their wake.

One such project is underway at the Alderwood Mall in Lynwood, Seattle, where developers are transforming part of the space – including the one that once housed its Sears anchor store – into a 300-unit apartment complex.

“Lynnwood can provide an ideal test ground for the long-term opportunities in large-scale mall-to-housing conditions,” Sisson wrote.

Public housing and homeless shelter

Homelessness in the U.S. is on the rise with more than 567,000 homeless Americans reported in 2019, up from 552.00 in 2018, according to the National Alliance to End Homelessness. By 2020, historic unemployment levels have been prevented due to the coronavirus that many are paying their bills and their hair, and while some regions have offered home freedoms, others have been less satisfactory.

In recent years, closed department stores have already begun to convert into homeless shelters. One such space is the Landmark Mall in Washington, DC, which transformed a defunct Macy’s store in 2018.

“The idea that stimulated this transformation represents a new way of thinking that brings together three economic phenomena: the collapse of the brick-and-mortar retail trade, the disappearance of affordable housing in the tree-lined cities of America, and the struggle to reduce homelessness, which remains as interactive as ever, ”Washington Post reporter Terrence McCoy wrote in 2018.

Now, in 2020, some argue that dying malls will continue to take this approach. TechCrunch columnist Jon Evans argued that converting vacant retail space into public housing as homeless shelters could have a significant impact on cities like San Francisco, which has one of the highest rents and homeless shelters in the country.

“If our world after COVID-19 is one where demand for office and retail space plumets, which seems likely, let’s take advantage of this space to help deal with the housing crisis that plagues rich cities across the globe. has, “Evans wrote in March.

Health clinics

When the early days of the pandemic came to light, the American health care system was ill-equipped to treat massive illnesses, causing too many people to be hospitalized and rapidly depleting resources such as protective personal equipment. In response, areas like New York City took to public spaces like Central Park and corporate parties for events like the Javits Center to create subjects.

Now, some experts say that empty shopping space could serve as not only an alternative medical space in times of a national crisis, but also permanent clinics for communities. In fact, one mall has already moved in this direction: in San Francisco, Brookfield Properties is redeveloping its Stonestown Galleria to include a health care provider, while also adding a Whole Foods, expanding a purpose and relocating a movie theater, New York. Times reported.

Off-price retail stores

While off-retail sales continue to flourish – even during the pandemic, as shoppers flocked back to reopened TJMaxx and Marshalls stores at surprising rates – some experts say the spaces previously housed by department stores may be lucrative for them prove cheaper counterparties.

Vince Tibone, a senior analyst at Green Street Advisors, told The New York Times that although many high-end, luxury malls have actively prevented tenants from bringing in off-price, the current economic crisis may change their minds.

“In the minds of top center owners, there was a higher and better use for their properties,” Tibone said. “But today there are far fewer options to fill space, and even those malls are just asking to get tenants into vacancies.”

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