REI To Sell New Bellevue Headquarters, Shift To Seattle

BELLEVUE, WA — REI is abandoning plans to move its headquarters to a newly-completed Bellevue campus and will instead shift to a decentralized model across several sites in Seattle. The Kent-based co-op publicly announced the shift Wednesday, including the planned sale of its 8-acre property in Bellevue's Spring District. Work on the site began in 2016, with plans to move-in this summer.

In a news release, REI said the "rapidly changing" coronavirus pandemic led to nearly 100 percent of its corporate staff working remotely.

"The dramatic events of 2020 have challenged us to reexamine and rethink every aspect of our business and many of the assumptions of the past," said Eric Artz, President and CEO of REI. "That includes where and how we work. As a result, our new experience of 'headquarters' will be very different than the one we imagined four years ago."

Artz said using a "distributed work model" will allow more flexibility for employees that live and work outside the region, and decrease its carbon footprint. While the move was spurred by the circumstances of the public health crisis, REI expects it to be the new normal, even after the pandemic is defeated.

"We learned that the more distributed way of working we previously thought untenable will instead unlock incredible potential," Artz said. "This will have immediate, positive impacts on our ability to attract and retain a diverse and highly skilled workforce, as we continue to navigate the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond."

REI was among the earliest national retailers to close all its stores in March, due to coronavirus precautions. The Washington Post reports an estimated 95 percent of furloughed employees have returned to work.