REI Co-op announced that it has completed the sale of its newly completed corporate campus in the Spring District neighborhood of Bellevue, WA, for a purchase price of $390 million.
The 400,000-square-foot campus and approximately six acres of land were purchased by Facebook on September 14, 2020. Site developer Wright Runstad & Company and Shorenstein Properties also purchased an undeveloped two-acre portion of the property.
For REI, the sale represents a positive return on the co-op’s investment in the property and will enable investments in REI’s customer-facing innovations, its nonprofit partners and carbon reduction goals.
REI said it announced its intention to pursue a sale of the Bellevue campus and shift to a more distributed work model in August 2020. Rather than a single location, the co-op’s future “headquarters” will span multiple satellite locations across the region, and the company will lean into remote working as a more engrained, supported and normalized model for headquarters employees.
Following the sale, REI and Facebook are each donating $1 million to the Eastrail, a 42-mile trail that the co-op has been deeply involved in helping bring to life for the last 4 years. When complete, the trail system will connect the diverse communities and businesses of King County’s Eastside through access to transit alternatives, employee hubs and greenspace. This investment will further outdoor infrastructure for the region that’s been REI’s home base for 82 years—serving the area’s 1.4 million lifetime members with nine stores, a distribution center and its headquarters.
Photo courtesy REI
