Just one week remains for REI‘s New York City flagship, with the storied SoHo door set to close for the final time July 23.
The closure, first announced last fall, ends a 15-year run at the corner of Houston Street and Lafayette Avenue and leaves a gaping void in the New York City outdoor retail landscape.
REI‘s closest locations are in Long Island and New Jersey, and the best remaining options for outdoor gear will be either brand-operated stores or retailers specializing more broadly in sports, or more specifically in apparel.
Footwear News spoke to several employees, who’ve been granted anonymity for fear of reprisal, about the store’s final days. Each expressed feelings of sadness for the departure of an outdoor institution in the city, and said customers are equally as disappointed.
“Lots of people are like, ‘I’ve been coming here for 15 years.’ And [they are] upset or confused,” said one of the part-time, seasonal employees that was hired this year. “They’re asking all the questions about what’s happening to the building, is it the lease? I’m doing a lot of talking about that all day.”
Some are also angry at a disconnect between what they’ve been told, that REI can’t afford increasing rent, and what they see as an act of retaliation against the first location to unionize.
Another employee, who’s been at the store for several years now on her second stint, said SoHo was typically the third or fourth best-selling REI location in the country, behind only Seattle, Denver and sometimes San Diego.
“Consumer demand is here, the buyers are here, the wealth is here,” they sad. “Our consumer is adventure travel: they’re going to Iceland, the Dolomites, Machu Picchu, Kilimanjaro. The fact that we’re not near a national park isn’t why we’re closing. We’re closing, I think, because we’re the first store to unionize. And Crate & Barrel has demonstrated you can leave a 50,000 square-foot lease and move to a smaller space to stay in the New York City market.”
Eleven other REI locations followed the SoHo store in unionizing, including Boston, which will also be closed this year. Negotiations for a labor contract remain ongoing, and union organizers asked customers in May to boycott the annual anniversary sale.
The store itself was noticeably emptier Wednesday afternoon, with the “Camp, Travel and Climb” section on the ground floor entirely closed off and its remaining product moved elsewhere. Fresh shipments stopped arriving a month prior to the closing date, and signage announcing the final day went up approximately two weeks ago.
Some customers who have missed the announcement and signage have been thrown off by the lack of selection. Others expressed sympathy in-person and through store reviews, the most recent of which on Google Maps reads, “If they weren’t union busting, they would move to a less expensive building like the [Siegel-Cooper] Building with the same foot traffic. If Burlington Coat Factory can make it in NYC, so can a single REI.”
Part-time and full-time employees have both been offered severance in two installments, according to the employees interviewed. Compensation for those who worked an average of more than 20 hours would get twice that of those under the threshold, and both figures are in the low-four digits, the employees said.
Two part-time employees said they felt the money was too low in either category.
“We all know the world of brick and mortar has changed,” the two-time employee said, “But still, if you’re a company that is going to say you’re going to do well by your people, do well by your people.”
FN has reached out to REI for comment.
