Recreational Tourists Rei Store In Seattle Is Fast Becoming A Tourist Attraction

Like New York’s FAO Schwarz and Portland’s Nike Town, Seattle’s new REI flagship store has become a tourist destination in the two months since it opened.

“So far several hundred thousand people have been through our doors. If you’re a local it’s a place to hang out. If you’re a tourist it’s a place to see,” said Jerry Chevassus, retail director for Recreational Equipment Inc.

Chevassus said he has seen two types of tourists: nonmembers and out-of-town members of one of the co-op’s 45 other stores who want to see the mothership.

“They’re using this as a pilgrimage to kind of the granddaddy of all the stores out there,” he said.

Regena Falling, a concierge at Seattle’s Four Seasons Olympic Hotel, said REI is a hot draw for tourists.

“Everybody’s heard of it. They want to go,” she said. “Nine times out of 10, people come up and say ‘where’s the new REI?’ It’s a very common question.”

Victoria Reese, a concierge at the Westin Hotel, agreed.

“There seems to be a lot of interest in it. They (tourists) think it’s like a museum, it exhibits our activities, what we do in the Northwest, where we live.”

All this is happening just nine weeks after the 58-year-old outdoor equipment co-op opened its new centerpiece store amid national attention.

Chevassus said he believes tourists are drawn to REI because it incorporates fun features that introduce shoppers to outdoor sports. There’s the climbing pinnacle, a mountain bike trail and indoor equipment test stations. The store itself is interesting with its open, industrial-style architecture and outdoor park.

And, Chevassus noted, “it does help to be right off Interstate 5. Some 260,000 vehicles pass by that location every day.”

Chevassus said the number of visitors and the volume of sales have far exceeded expectations. He said the new store, at 222 Yale Ave. N., just north of downtown Seattle, has more than doubled the number of shoppers and the sales volume of the Capitol Hill store it replaced. He wouldn’t release more specific figures.

Despite the success, Chevassus acknowledges there have been a few bugs.

“This whole building was stress-tested by running tens of thousands of people through it at one time. We learned,” he said.

Employees had to take apart and repair a fountain used to test water filters after the water dissolved the fountain’s exterior coating. They had to move trees and add signs along the outdoor mountain bike path. And they installed extra antennas so the pagers carried by people waiting to climb the pinnacle could hear when they were being paged.

“We’ve tweaked just about every special feature in that store,” Chevassus said.

He called the store a “corporate laboratory” to test features that could be replicated in other REI stores.

And those who visit - both natives and tourists - are the guinea pigs.

“They’re using them (the features) and they’re having fun doing it, too. They’re producing the exact results we wanted them to produce.”