Orvis, the country’s oldest mail-order business, will be moving its headquarters from Sunderland to Manchester as the company shrinks its footprint in response to the new hybrid work environment.
Company executives, who announced the news on Friday, said the transplanted offices will become part of the outdoor gear and apparel retailer’s planned campus in Manchester. The company already operates its flagship store, an outlet store, a fly-fishing school and rod shop on Main Street in Manchester Village.
“It’s a really cool opportunity to build a stronger culture and community, both internally and externally,” said Orvis spokesperson Tucker Kimball, “to be all sort of a hub in that campus.”
Before the Covid-19 pandemic reached Vermont in early 2020, an average of 240 people worked at the Orvis headquarters in Sunderland every day, Kimball said. Now, that number is down to roughly 25.
With more employees doing a mix of office and remote work, the company decided to decrease its office space. “What we found is that associates really like the flexibility of hybrid work,” Kimball said.
Orvis, a 168-year-old family-owned business that also has a presence in the United Kingdom, has a total of 1,800 employees, or “associates,” according to the company.
Kimball said the company did not yet have a target date for moving the headquarters, adding it’s largely dependent on when Orvis can sell its Sunderland offices. He said the sale, which would fund the transition, could take place as soon as six months from now or longer than two years.
He said the company has not yet decided whether to build a new facility in Manchester or to expand its existing properties in town.
Manchester officials welcomed the news of Orvis’s expansion in the town where the brand was founded by Charles Orvis in 1856.
Town Manager Scott Murphy said that the local Orvis stores and school draw a significant number of tourists to Manchester. And the consolidation into a company campus would offer visitors more in one place.
“I think it’s a plus to have everything in one location,” Murphy said in an interview. “Manchester and Manchester Village both benefit from their presence.”
Members of the Sunderland Selectboard couldn’t immediately be reached for comment on Monday.
When asked about the speculation that Orvis planned to move its headquarters from Sunderland to Roanoke, Virginia, Kimball said that was not accurate. The company’s distribution center is in Roanoke, but Orvis intends to remain in Vermont, he said.
“Our history and heritage is so baked into this place,” Kimball said.
Orvis, the oldest mail-order retailer in the U.S., was purchased in 1965 by Leigh H. Perkins, who is credited with building it into one of the country’s largest sporting lifestyle brands. A New York Times obituary for Perkins noted that the company “was sending out catalogs before the Civil War and predated Sears, Roebuck by more than 20 years.”
Orvis, best known for its fly-fishing equipment, also offers sportswear, travel gear, dog beds, fine shotguns and technical apparel for shooting birds in flight, also called wingshooting.
