The downtown Seattle core has seen a burst of new activity this year as Amazon workers and others return to the office five days a week.
And more foot traffic means more business for places that cater to locals.
“The salon, the shoe-shine spot, the dry cleaner, those types of businesses that were really oriented to people working downtown,” said Jon Scholes, who leads the Downtown Seattle Association.
He said Amazon, as the company with the most employees downtown, sets the tone for everyone else.
“I think their decision and their move is going to be influential to other employers that have been wrestling with some of the same considerations."
Among other companies headquartered in Seattle that have been considering their back-to-office plans is Brooks Running.
'An easy decision for us'
Brooks Running is much smaller than Amazon, but can also boast a level of global brand recognition.
Brooks has grown to 500 Seattle-based employees in recent years, enough growth to spawn a larger corporate headquarters in Fremont.
It's located a little north of downtown Seattle, past Lake Union and, naturally, alongside the Burke-Gilman recreational trail.
The new building, adjacent to Brooks' existing one on Stone Way, is full of little touches that remind you Brooks is a running shoe company.
There’s a huge interactive map of Seattle running routes. There’s a light fixture made to resemble shoelaces, hanging right in the middle of an open atrium.
“We just had an employee town hall there where we had people gathered on all floors as we were updating them on the business,” said Brooks Running CEO Dan Sheridan.
Among the topics we discussed when we spoke in his office: how new tariffs would affect the footwear industry, which relies heavily on imports, and how Brooks was handling “return to office.”
Interview Highlights
On Brooks moving into new office space, while other companies are shrinking their footprint
This was a pretty easy decision for us. I mean, not that investment in office space is an easy decision, but for us, we build physical products for runners, we build programs that are integrated throughout the world. And so when we thought of space, we just knew we had to be together. And so through the pandemic and in '23 and '24 we had already moved back to three solid days in the office. And truth be told, our product teams are here five or six days working the product puzzle.
On convincing employees to return to the office
It went through phases, right? I mean, you're fighting some trends, In '22, where everybody got used to being at home… it had a bit of transition. We went to two days and then three days.
Now we're settling into this three-day [in office] work week that is working for us.
On sales in China, and opening a storefront in Shanghai
Whenever we enter a market there has to be a few truths for us. One, a robust runner population, and China is now the number two running market in the world...They have over 450 marathons in China right now. So the growth of the sport is just incredible.
And as we open our store, what we're seeing is run communities and run clubs activate in our store. So our playbook that worked here in the U.S. is translating in China, and we're very bullish on the market, and our results are starting to show it.
On what a shake up in global trade policy could mean for Brooks
New administrations — there's always changes, right? The big one that's in the news is obviously tariffs.
And the secret in footwear and athletic footwear is we already have very, very high tariffs coming out of Southeast Asia. Call it north of 20% on athletic footwear, and so if more tariffs come, it'll be somewhat punitive, not only for Brooks, but for this entire industry. And ultimately, we'll probably have to raise prices for consumers, because we're continuing to invest in R&D and innovation.
And so when the puzzle changes at a financial level, you got to make choices.
