After years of squeezing too many employees in too few square feet, Columbia Sportswear is spending $33 million for three buildings located near the main campus.
Columbia, a fast-growing apparel and footwear maker, announced Wednesday that it bought three former Electro Scientific Industries (ESI) buildings totaling 200,000 square feet. Currently, the company’s entire headquarters in Northwest Portland totals 450,000 square feet.
Columbia Sportswear has grown quickly in recent years. Sales increased more than $350 million in 2018 to finish the year at more than $2.8 billion. The company employed more than 6,500 full-time equivalent employees by the end of 2018. The year before it employed just over 6,100.
Columbia has been forced to lease space far from its headquarters to house those new employees. It moved the entire e-commerce unit off the main campus, said Mary Ellen Glynn, Columbia spokeswoman.
“We’ve got some people who are more than a mile away and this will allow us to move them,” Glynn said. “It will also provide space for new employees. That’s the exciting part.”
The three new buildings are less than a mile from the main campus, directly next door to the Columbia’s company store. All three will get makeovers before employees move in. One of the three will be ready for occupancy by June 2020, the other two by June 2021.
Laser manufacturer ESI sold last year to a Massachusetts company, MKS Instruments, for $1 billion. MKS chief financial officer Seth Bagshaw said Thursday that ESI had excess property in Washington County for many years and said the decision to sell the buildings to Columbia represented “a unique opportunity.” He said Oregon will remain headquarters for MKS’ ESI division.
Oregonian reporter Mike Rogoway contributed to this report.