{"id":299323,"date":"2026-07-18T07:20:34","date_gmt":"2026-07-18T07:20:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/299323\/"},"modified":"2026-07-18T07:20:34","modified_gmt":"2026-07-18T07:20:34","slug":"inside-the-final-days-of-reis-new-york-city-flagship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/299323\/","title":{"rendered":"Inside the Final Days of REI’s New York City Flagship"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tJust one week remains for REI<\/a>\u2018s New York City flagship, with the storied SoHo door set to close for the final time July 23.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe 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. <\/p>\n

\n\tREI<\/a>\u2018s 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.<\/p>\n

\n\tFootwear News spoke to several employees, who\u2019ve been granted anonymity for fear of reprisal, about the store\u2019s final days. Each expressed feelings of sadness for the departure of an outdoor institution in the city, and said customers are equally as disappointed. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cLots of people are like, \u2018I\u2019ve been coming here for 15 years.\u2019 And [they are] upset or confused,\u201d said one of the part-time, seasonal employees that was hired this year. \u201cThey\u2019re asking all the questions about what\u2019s happening to the building, is it the lease? I\u2019m doing a lot of talking about that all day.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSome are also angry at a disconnect between what they\u2019ve been told, that REI<\/a> can\u2019t afford increasing rent, and what they see as an act of retaliation against the first location to unionize<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tAnother employee, who\u2019s 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. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cConsumer demand is here, the buyers are here, the wealth is here,\u201d they sad. \u201cOur consumer is adventure travel: they\u2019re going to Iceland, the Dolomites, Machu Picchu, Kilimanjaro. The fact that we\u2019re not near a national park isn\u2019t why we\u2019re closing. We\u2019re closing, I think, because we\u2019re 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tEleven 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. <\/p>\n

\n\tA spokesperson from REI said: \u201cAny claim that this store is closing because of unionization is simply not true. \u00a0As we shared with our employees and members last fall, the decision was based on broader business considerations and our need to adapt to changing market conditions and customer needs.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe store itself was noticeably emptier Wednesday afternoon, with the \u201cCamp, Travel and Climb\u201d 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. <\/p>\n

\n\tSome 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, \u201cIf they weren\u2019t 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tPart-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. <\/p>\n

\n\tTwo part-time employees said they felt the money was too low in either category.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe all know the world of brick and mortar has changed,\u201d the two-time employee said, \u201cBut still, if you\u2019re a company that is going to say you\u2019re going to do well by your people, do well by your people.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Just one week remains for REI\u2018s New York City flagship, with the storied SoHo door set to close…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":299324,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[9,24,55,54,56,29834,113768,56772],"class_list":["post-299323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-headlines","tag-new-york-city-news","tag-ny","tag-rei","tag-rei-co-op","tag-store-closures"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=299323"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299323\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/299324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=299323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=299323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=299323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}