[V]ermont will soon be one step closer to achieving ultimate outdoors status, with the state’s first Recreational Equipment Inc. store set to open in Williston.
The REI will be located at 244 Retail Way — a 31,000 square-foot property left vacant when Toys “R” Us went out of business last year. The site is adjacent to Marshall’s, in the town’s Tafts Corner shopping district.
A $2 million redesign is in the works before the store’s opening day, including construction of a new facade. Matt Boulanger, Williston’s director of planning and zoning, approved the project last week after the town’s Historic and Architectural Advisory Committee signed off on the plan earlier in March.
Boulanger said Williston is fortunate because often when big box stores go out of business, vacancies can be hard to fill.
Boulanger said zoning approval is easier when a store is moving into an existing empty building and making minor changes. He said REI has likely been looking in the Burlington area and the vacant building presented the right opportunity.
“It seems like a pretty natural fit to the size of cities that REI often locates in, as well as outdoorsy sort of places, so it’s not too surprising they might want to be in this market,” Boulanger said. “As far a why they chose Williston now, there was a place to go, there was an empty spot to go into that apparently meets their needs, and location-wise seems to be close enough to the population center of county, and in an area that’s accessible that people already come to shop.”
The company currently has stores in all but fifteen states; New Hampshire and Maine also don’t have a store.
Boulanger said that although the store has no official open date so far, he would expect it to open its doors by the holiday season, typical for a retailer undergoing a remodel of a new store at this time of year.
Officials from REI did not respond to request for comment for this story.
