Saratoga News

Photograph by Robert Scheer

Richard Arase of Saratoga, a sales specialist with REI, organizes a rack of women's outerwear that was transferred from the Cupertino store to the new one at El Paseo.

REI Inc. moves from small Cupertino store to El Paseo

By Sarah Lombardo

The next time someone tells you to go climb a mountain, you won't have to go very far to appease him. Recreational Equipment Inc., popularly known as REI, relocated its Cupertino store to El Paseo Shopping Center April 26, complete with a 30-foot-high climbing wall.

"You've got the whole gamut there," Barbara Hudler, REI Bay Area special events spokeswoman, said prior to recent opening activities.

Hudler said the community room at the new store is one reason the Seattle-based company decided to relocate. With El Paseo undergoing such a dramatic renovation and with the space available, she said the company saw the chance to expand. The company plans to use the community room for lectures and classes. "The Cupertino store was the smallest store," she said. "That place was overflowing."

And how does the new 35,000-square-foot store feel?

"It's like night and day," she said.

The new facility also features a footwear-test trail, a water-filtration test station, a stove-comparison center, a bike-light testing darkroom and, of course, the pinnacle, available for customers to try out mountain-climbing shoes before buying them. The features are modeled after those of the company's flagship store in Seattle.

The outdoor company adds competition to Any Mountain, which also recently relocated from Cupertino to nearby Westgate Mall. But Hudler pointed out that REI is a co-op--the largest in the country.

Established in 1938, REI was begun by a group of 23 Pacific Northwest mountaineers. The group formed a consumer cooperative that now serves 1.5 million active members at 49 stores nationwide. A one-time $15 fee gains members lifetime membership, and then, "Basically, they get a dividend at the end of each year," Hudler said. And that could mean about a 10 percent refund of the value of the member's purchases for the year, she said.

But Hudler stressed that the store is open to everyone, not just members.

For more information on clinics and workshops planned at the store, call 871-8765.

[ Back to Contents Page | Saratoga News Home Page | Archives ]