REI selling brand-new, unused headquarters

[Rex Sanders]

REI got a lot of attention for building a new 8-acre headquarters in Bellevue, Washington with many “green” features and an abundance of outdoor access and gathering spaces.

Now they’ve decided that remote work is A Good Thing, and will “headquarter” in a small number of Seattle-area buildings.

“The sale of the Spring District campus would enable important investments in customer innovations, REI’s network of nonprofit partners, and the co-op’s carbon goals.”

More:

https://www.rei.com/newsroom/article/rei-co-op-to-pursue-sale-of-headquarters-embrace-distributed-work-model

https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/13/business/rei-sell-campus-coronavirus-trnd/index.html

— Rex

[Arthur]

Rex, this brings up an interesting topic that I will look forward to seeing real research.   It seems a given that air pollution has gone down with fewer cars on the road. That’s great! The questions is whether there will be a carbon decrease goal as REI implies.  Seattle in winter-> the big, new, well insulated and energy efficient office is closed.  Now, employees are all now at home, in old, poorly insulated homes because new is very expensive.  They could have turned down the heat at home, took public transit, used the company’s electric (solar?) for their computers, the company’s more efficient heat due to new building and just mass of bodies in the rooms to keep warm, etc, etc.  I am sure there are a lot of variables here, but just wondering if their noble goal will be achieved.  The old saying “what is logical and obvious is often not real”  may apply here.   I am sure there will be studies and it will be interesting.

[Michael Gillenwater]

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378778820317710

[David Thomas]

As Arthur points out, at least in older Seattle neighborhoods, energy use might go up with telecommuting.  We had a 1910 2-story plus basement house in Capital Hill while we were in Seattle, and it was leaky and poorly insulated.  When we were both at work, we’d just turn the thermostat off since it wasn’t going to freeze up and then turn it at 6 pm when we got home.

If working from home, one might heat the whole house up to keep a home office warm (and, let’s face it, we wander to the kitchen, do some laundry, etc, during our remote work days).  Or use an electric resistance heater to just warm up the home office which on most grids, isn’t very carbon-efficient (it is in the PNW due to all the hydro power they have).

OTOH, where I am now, in Alaska, in a well-insulated and well-sealed house?  I run no heat when the outside temps are above 40F and on cold winter days, turning down the thermostat doesn’t make much difference.  Turn down the thermostat from 70F to 60F while I’m away?  That reduces the inside-outside temp differential from 80F to 70F which isn’t much of a percentage reduction.  Compared to coastal California winters in which the inside/outside differential of 70F-52F is reduced a lot if you turn the thermostat down much.

Looking at the electricity sales of our utility, year-to-year comparisons show residential use was up this Spring and Summer, but not by as much as small and large commercial usage was down.  People were working, schooling and cooking at home more, and continue to do so, but the reduction in stores, offices and restaurants was a larger reduction, across the 60,000 people we serve.  And most of our large supermarkets and big box stores have gone to reduced hours.

But getting traffic off the road?  That’s huge.  Both the trip you didn’t take and the remaining drivers getting better fuel efficiency with less stop&go driving.  Interestingly, this Spring, miles driven went down, but fatalities went up because accidents occurred at higher speeds on the emptier roads.

[Arthur]

Thanks, great article.  Little support for REI’s statement,  however.

[Brad P]

This seems to assume that everyone lives in an older home and shuts off their a/c and heat while at work.

People might adjust the temp while away, but you’re still using energy at both home and the office while also commuting. You also have the maintenance of both the home and the office.

A friend’s former coworker at a big consulting firm said they need to offer remote work opportunities in order to be competitive in hiring people.

I have 2 developers on my team who live over 2000 miles away and I haven’t seen them in person in over 2 years.

I wonder when Silicon Valley companies will realize they can pay people a lot less and their employees will still be financially better off if they work almost anywhere else in the country.

[David Thomas]

BradP: I’ve long wondered that, living as I do in a place with gorgeous scenery, tasty critters and low property costs.  If a tech company or two set up a mini-campus for the occasional F2F stuff in a more rural setting, but mostly had people work from home, it could be a big draw for hikers, hunters, fisherman, and people who want their own mini-ranch.

A job offer from Google in Mountain View?  And now you’re looking at some little house and 1/10-acre yard in the suburbs for $1.3M.  Versus some remote setting like where I live and a basic 1/3-acre city lot is $30,000 (land only) and $100,000 gets something really nice (5+ acres, on a lake, salmon river or ocean beach).

I know two guys, one in IT for a phone company and one in finance for Fanny-Mae that live in Soldotna, working remotely.

[AK Granola]

Shush David! What are you doing! Next thing you’ll give away directions to the berry patch.

[Geoff Caplan]

David

Bumped into an IT guy on the hill yesterday.

Works for a large company with 200+ in the IT department and said they put in a big effort to set up effective systems for home working.

He feels that the lockdown has been a watershed moment – working from home has been a success and the company is already planning to close offices. They have discovered that a lot of the reasons for forcing everyone to commute daily into an expensive office had more to do with habit and custom than with economic effectiveness, particularly as the technical alternatives have become mature and affordable.

We agreed that being an office developer with a big portfolio is not a good place to be right now – the pandemic may be the trigger for a significant restructuring of the way we go to work…

[Rex Sanders]

And the new owner of the unused REI headquarters is … Facebook?

Facebook is buying a previously unused corporate headquarters from outdoor retailer REI, despite the social media company’s plans to shift more of its employees to working from home. …

“The sale represents a positive return on the co-op’s investment in the property,” according to REI’s statement.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/14/tech/facebook-rei-headquarters-sale/index.html

— Rex

[Jerry Adams]

Exactly where can I get a lot for $30K?

[Jerry Adams]

if I’m working from home I might make more auto trips

[AK Granola]

You can get a lot of land for just a little up here in Alaska, David’s not wrong there. I don’t particularly want a big rush of people, but it would be nice to have better internet which would come with more professionals and fewer rednecks in the workforce up here. Might change our “gimme my handout” politics too.

[Jerry Adams]

Yeah, we have the same attitude in oregon, don’t encourage people to come here because we’ll get over-run

Or “don’t Californicate oregon” :)

[Ben H.]

Jerry are you a member of the James Blaine Society?

[Author]

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