LYNNWOOD—Lynnwood REI’s brand-new location held its grand opening and ribbon cutting ceremony Friday morning, April 4, to a crowd of 200 patrons eager to explore the co-op’s doubled capacity.
After 20-years of serving the community of Lynnwood at Alderwood Mall, the PNW-founded outdoor and recreation co-op identified a need for more space – to fulfill the needs of its faithful customers/members with the products they were looking for.
As the only north-end store between Seattle and Bellingham, the Lynnwood REI has served Snohomish County outdoor enthusiasts for years but felt the limited space at Alderwood, as well as the parking limitations, was holding them back from serving their community to the best of their ability.
“They earned it. They came in and they were buying what we had when they could, they would order online if they could, they would return the things that didn’t work out that they had to order online as they needed,” Nikki Mashapure, General Manager at Lynnwood REI, told the Lynnwood Times. “We just kept hearing this need for more product and a broader assortment to meet their needs of what they were looking for.”
Mashapure has been with REI for 24 years, beginning as a part-timer at the location in Redmond Town Center as an excuse to get a discount on climbing gear. Through the encouragement of her peers, she pursued a leadership position and has now been a manager since 2008.
“The people you work with are such high caliber. They’re so inviting. They love to teach new skills to each other and to customers, and our employee base comes out of our customer base,” said Mashapure.
Lynnwood REI is Mashapure’s third store opening, after a store in Los Angeles and another store in Las Vegas. As a Pacific Northwest native, she informed the Lynnwood Times she is excited to be back in the mountains, forests, and waters that she has grown to miss.
“It just felt really good to come home,” said Mashapure.
Mashapure’s favorite thing about working for REI is the company’s emphasis on work-life balance. Though she’s salary she shared she’s rarely in the store more than 40-hours a week, which gives her the opportunity to spend time with her family, to hike, to camp, and show them all her favorite PNW places she grew up loving.
The new Lynnwood REI location is double the size of its former location at Alderwood, clocking in at a whopping 39,000 square feet with doubled capacity in virtually every way – from a bigger warehouse, bigger salesfloor, an added water sports department, a bicycle repair shop, and even a brand new community room which will hold workshops, vendor demonstrations, and classes teaching members how to use their brand new recreational equipment.
The Community Room will also host REI’s various nonprofit partners who will give seminars on trail preservation and outdoor conservation efforts.
Those who are interested in keeping up to date on these events can visit REI.com/lynnwood to see a complete schedule of upcoming classes and workshops. Additionally, those who are REI members will receive emailed discounts to any of the fee-based workshops.
While owing the expansion to the longstanding, faithful, customer base over the past 20-years, Mashapure also said it came down to an employee connection with Retail Director Squire Simpson (who oversees 13 stores in Alaska, Eastern Washington, and all along the I-5 corridor).
Simpson, who has been with REI for three years – bringing two decades of managerial experience with Home Depot – informed the Lynnwood Times he was attracted to REI’s mission of having a “genuine focus on outdoor culture, making it accessible for all while recognizing the impacts that it can have.”
REI’s new location, located at 19500 Alderwood Mall Parkway – just 5-minutes down the road from its former location at Alderwood Mall – sits where the Dick’s Sporting Goods used to be, and Babies “R” Us years prior, just right across the street from Barnes and Noble.
Despite taking over an existing building used for a competing outdoor recreation retailer, REI did quite a bit of refurbishing the space – to maximize its sales floor for the presentation it needed to demonstrate its products accordingly.
Mashapure leads a team of approximately 70 employees at Lynnwood REI including Scott Sander, who in many ways is the mastermind behind the back-of-house operations.
Sander has been an REI employee for 29 years, beginning at the retailer’s original Lynnwood location on 196th Street, through Alderwood, and now in its brand-new location.
Sander informed the Lynnwood Times what has kept him with the company for nearly three decades is the “true connection to people’s adventures.”
He elaborated with a story about selling a pair of climbing boots to a customer who he later bumped into at the pharmacy. The customer was ecstatic to see him and not only reported that the boots worked wonders but told the tales of all of the adventures he has had with them since. It’s stories like these, Sander said, that keeps his job interesting because every sale could potentially lead to a new, exhilarating, experience.
At Friday morning’s grand opening, and ribbon-cutting ceremony, nearly 200 outdoor enthusiasts lined up outside from early in the morning to be the first ones ever to step food in the brand-new building, enjoying the complimentary donuts and coffee while they wait.
Outside, REI vendors – including Gregory Packs, Black Diamond Equipment, Outdoor Research, Soloman, Arc’teryx, Aeropress, and more – met customers face-to-face demonstrating the latest and greatest in recreational equipment innovation.
In REI grand opening tradition, a team of energetic, smiling, staff members welcomed the crowd of guests in with chiming cowbells, cheers, and high-fives creating an everlasting culture, and relationships with their community they hope will last for times to come.
A day prior, on Thursday, April 3, REI opened its doors to members of the community including Lynnwood Mayor Christine Frizzell who shared the following words:
“One of the things I love about living in Lynnwood is how central we are to some of the most beautiful trails, waterways, and open spaces. We can also experience our own natural beauty right here in our city. Lynnwood is home to nearly 430 acres of parkland, 17 city parks, 14 miles of trails, and so much more. Visitors from across the country and the world come to the Puget Sound region to explore our natural landscape, and now they have an even bigger REI location to shop and prepare for their next trek. With its community room for local nonprofit organizations and employing 71 employees, this new REI location will continue to benefit our community for years to come.”
Lynnwood REI is open from Monday through Saturday, from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m., and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Author: Kienan Briscoe
One Response
A map of the new location would have been great .