Office Depot to close downtown Boise store. This is why, and what will come next
Office Depot plans to close its downtown Boise store.
The store, located at the corner of West Broad Street and North Capitol Boulevard in the BoDo District, has begun a store closing sale. The store is expected to cease operations next month.
“Office Depot continues to optimize its retail footprint, and as a result, the Office Depot store located at 722 West Broad St. is scheduled to close on Saturday, April 24,” company spokesperson Shera Bishop said by email.
The store opened in November 2005, following the creation of the BoDo District as a three-building, $60 million redevelopment project. Office Depot’s 19,000-square-foot space will become part of a food hall called The Warehouse, now under development by BoDo owner Hendricks Commercial Properties.
The store opened as an experiment to see whether an Office Depot could thrive in a downtown that is small compared withmajor markets such as New York City and Chicago. The company’s stores are more often found in suburban settings.
Office Depot was BoDo’s second-largest tenant behind the 45,000-square-foot, nine-screen, 2,200-seat Edwards Theater complex, which closed during the coronavirus pandemic and won’t reopen.
The closure, first reported by Boisedev.com, came after Hendricks said it declined to extend Office Depot’s lease.
The ODP Corp., which operates Office Depot, OfficeMax and several regional office supply distribution companies, reported a sales drop of 9% in 2020 compared with the year before, according to the company’s annual report released last month. Gross profits fell 13%.
Office Depot and OfficeMax had 1,244 stores as of last month, with 37,000 employees. OfficeMax was bought by Boise-based Boise Cascade Co. in 2003, before Office Depot combined the two companies a decade later.
The closure of the Broad and Capitol Office Depot will leave the company with two Treasure Valley Office Depots, at Fairview and Eagle roads in Meridian, and at 216 Caldwell Blvd. in Nampa. There’s one OfficeMax store at 8551 W. Franklin Road in Boise.
On Monday, Office Depot rejected an offer from Staples to buy some Office Depot assets. In January, ODP rejected a takeover offer from Staples of more than $2 billion.
This story was originally published March 20, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
