SEATTLE (AP) – The open-air store REI said it is moving from its nearly finished corporate campus in the Seattle suburbs and will move head operations to sites in the Seattle domain because the coronavirus pandemic is affecting the way it does business.
The Kent, Washington-based company said in talks with “several stakeholders” to sell the 353-square-foot (380,000-square-foot) construction and the 3-hectare (8-acre) campus in Bellevue, The Seattle Times. Reported.
“The dramatic occasions of 2020 challenged us to re-examine and reconsider each and every facet of our business and many assumptions from the past,” Eric Artz, president and ceo, said in a video call Wednesday.
REI’s top 1,200 workers have been operating remotely since March 2, when the company withstood the pandemic, closing more than 160 retail sites on March 16, and a dramatic drop in revenue.
The company said when it eventually returns to offices, it expects to operate in several sites, including an existing one in Seattle, as well as new satellite campuses in the eastern suburbs and in South Puget Sound, for which REI is scouting.
But the pandemic has forced REI to reconsider not only the office of its employees, but also the capital it can spend on a single asset at a time of economic uncertainty, said Ben Steele, director of visitors to REI, who led the headquarters design. . Training
Steele stated that the good luck of rei’s pandemic-style paintings showed that the company can function well without a central location.
In May, the company projected a 30% decline in revenue for the year due to the pandemic. Although stores began reopening in May and sales have outperformed that forecast, Steele says the company expects “to be down on an annual basis.”
The new main work style gives REI “a way of working from which our workers can gain advantages, and the ability to strategically move towards a healthy money or balance sheet,” Steele said.
Although the company declined to say how much it invested in the project, “we anticipate that the prospective sale of our assets would provide a positive return to our four-year investment,” spokesman Halley Knigge said.