K2 moving from Vashon Island to South Seattle

**altasnob** · 06-23-2006, 08:09 AM

K2 Sports, the renowned manufacturer of skis and snowboards, will move its headquarters from Vashon Island to Seattle's Sodo district.

No loss of jobs is expected, but the move from Vashon, home to K2 Sports since 1961, is chilling to the island's business community.

The company's business operations, which include more than 200 employees in customer service, sales and marketing, as well as product development and prototyping, will take up residence in a new 28,000-square-foot facility at 4201 Sixth Ave. S.

K2 also plans to open a 90,000 square-foot showroom for new products.

The move is to begin in mid-August and be completed in early November. Once the Vashon facilities have been cleared, K2 plans to put the property up for sale.

Shipping and receiving will remain in Fife. Manufacturing and production is based primarily in China.

The company has simply outgrown Vashon, said Robert Marcovitch, president of K2 Sports, a subsidiary of Carlsbad, Calif.-based K2 Inc.

The Sodo location will allow the company to be more readily accessible to customers and vendors, a difficult thing to manage when you're "off the beaten track," said Marcovitch.

"From a business perspective, the location of the facility really hampers our ability to progress," he said. "Our business has changed dramatically and continues to change. It's hard to do that from an island"

About 15 percent of the company's employees live on the island. Marcovitch expects them to make the commute to Seattle.

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The news is a blow to Vashon's business community.

"The heart of the heart of the Sound is leaving," said Lee Ockinga, contract executive director of the Vashon Island Chamber of Commerce.

Ockinga was shocked to hear of the move but she doesn't expect any catastrophic impact.

"A lot of people have left in the past," said Ockinga. "We're still here. The amazing thing about the island is its ability to reinvent itself. We can do it again."

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/htm...2sports23.html

**mntlion** · 06-23-2006, 08:20 AM

large asian population in seattle?

first the skis, now this...

**Tippster** · 06-23-2006, 08:35 AM

Good for them.

**Schmear** · 06-23-2006, 08:42 AM

Probably a good move. Most employees commute to the island from Seattle anyway. As cool as Vashon is, that has to get old after a while.

**orange** · 06-23-2006, 08:56 AM

It's just cheaper to move from the islands to the other factories and warehouses of Seattle. Here's a transworld business link about the move.
http://www.twsbiz.com/twbiz/industry...207207,00.html

**Stikki** · 06-23-2006, 10:00 AM

Since the last three years ad campaigns prominently featured Vashon (k2 frat, area k2, etc) does this mean the new campaigns will be shot in SoDo (SOuth DOwntown Seattle industrial area)?
A few ideas:
Plake's k2 mobile on blocks because the wheels were stolen
Pep getting mugged at the truck loading docks
Seth being harrased by bums in the train yard
Freeride team sitting around barrel fire drinking Rainier Ale 40's

**GoldMember** · 06-23-2006, 10:03 AM

Originally Posted by Stikki

Since the last three years ad campaigns prominently featured Vashon (k2 frat, area k2, etc) does this mean the new campaigns will be shot in SoDo (SOuth DOwntown Seattle industrial area)?
A few ideas:
Plake's k2 mobile on blocks because the wheels were stolen
Pep getting mugged at the truck loading docks
Seth being harrased by bums in the train yard
Freeride team sitting around barrel fire drinking Rainier Ale 40's

Hilarious. Unfortunately, sad but true. On the bright side, K2 could buy them all season tickets to the Mariners and provide them good parking for the games!

**Monique** · 06-23-2006, 10:44 AM

Originally Posted by Stikki

Since the last three years ad campaigns prominently featured Vashon (k2 frat, area k2, etc) does this mean the new campaigns will be shot in SoDo (SOuth DOwntown Seattle industrial area)?
A few ideas:
Plake's k2 mobile on blocks because the wheels were stolen
Pep getting mugged at the truck loading docks
Seth being harrased by bums in the train yard
Freeride team sitting around barrel fire drinking Rainier Ale 40's

Don't forget Andy Mahre dodging bricks during an earthquake!

Actually a good branding/marketing person would have made sure the company was committed to Vashon before using it as a centerpiece of the ad campaigns (which IMO were shockingly lame anyway). They'll probably backpedal hard and come up with a transitional campaign along the same lines. Ahhhhh, if only all the world's companies would pay me to fix them, I'd make so much money I wouldn't have to work anymore. Wait, then I WOULD have to work more. Oh, never mind.

**The AD** · 06-23-2006, 10:45 AM

I checked where that address (4201 6th Ave S) is and it's actually south of the West Seattle Bridge. Is that still considered SoDo?

The SoDo area is a little gritty, but has sort of a cachet with Starbucks headquartered there among other things.

**The Dad** · 06-23-2006, 11:10 AM

Originally Posted by Monique

Actually a good branding/marketing person would have made sure the company was committed to Vashon

I assume that when the death of the company's founder, who had been a pillar of the local business community, is followed in short order by a decision to move the business, it means that the reason they hadn't moved previously had just disappeared.

I know that correllation does not necessarily imply causality, but absent another theory, it's too tidy to ignore.

**ljm** · 06-23-2006, 12:46 PM

Originally Posted by The AD

I checked where that address (4201 6th Ave S) is and it's actually south of the West Seattle Bridge. Is that still considered SoDo?

I'd still call that SoDo (borderline)... but what do I know?

**Stikki** · 06-23-2006, 12:49 PM

Originally Posted by The AD

I checked where that address (4201 6th Ave S) is and it's actually south of the West Seattle Bridge. Is that still considered SoDo?

The SoDo area is a little gritty, but has sort of a cachet with Starbucks headquartered there among other things.

I took the article's word for it and didn't realize where that address was. Yeah, that's the no-mans-land between Sodo and Georgetown. Like you said there's still some life in Sodo but the 4200 block of 6th ave is pure industrial. That place is a ghost town after dark.

How timely to run this story a few months ago.

**Monique** · 06-23-2006, 01:13 PM

Originally Posted by alpinedad

I assume that when the death of the company's founder, who had been a pillar of the local business community, is followed in short order by a decision to move the business, it means that the reason they hadn't moved previously had just disappeared.

I know that correllation does not necessarily imply causality, but absent another theory, it's too tidy to ignore.

I'd speculate the announcement may have been delayed by Kirschner's death or may coincidentally have been timed to happen now subject to property negotiations, but the decision to move wasn't made in the past six weeks. It would have been planned for years in advance (at the time the bulk of manufacturing moved, for example) and made firm at least several months before it was announced, giving the company time to secure the new location, develop a transition plan and notify employees before the media, talk to stakeholders about how the impact will be mitigated in both the old and the new communities, etc. A leak before those ducks were standing in neat rows would have been a PR disaster. So maybe they sat so tightly on the decision even their internal marketing people didn't know, or they used an external ad firm they didn't trust with the news or whatever...I dunno. I'm just saying (in my easy role as armchair quarterback) if they didn't veto that ad campaign because it was dumb they should have vetoed it because moving was under discussion.

And now I should get back to work so I can get paid to say stuff like this!

**Monique** · 06-23-2006, 01:18 PM

Speaking of branding, maybe now we'll get another exciting new neighborhood name in Seattle! (As if paying someone to name the stretch between Pike Place and Pioneer Square "The West Edge" didn't waste enough money.)

So-SoDo

**The AD** · 06-23-2006, 01:51 PM

Sobr (south of the bridge) pronounced "sober."

**cj001f** · 06-23-2006, 01:57 PM

So whats the next K2 marketing campaign? Even odds they'll change that tune in a couple years? The Made-in the USA flag waving ski company moved to china shortly after that campaign, now they leave Vashon after the brag about Vashon campaign, so whats next?