Upfront ENVIRONMENT
Drowning in Restoration Hardware catalogs
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ancy Reyering and six other Woodside and Portola Valley residents made a delivery to the Restoration Hardware store in Palo Alto on Wednesday in the hope they might send a message to the home-furnishings store’s corporate headquarters. They brought nearly 2,000 pounds of catalogs the company recently shipped to local residents, who say they are upset about the waste the unwanted catalogs represent. Each resident had received a huge bundle of as many as 13 large catalogs, wrapped in plastic and weighing up to 17 pounds. With the returned catalogs, Reyering included a letter asking the corporation to “consider taking a stand as the first truly ‘green’ retailer by eliminating the printing and mailing of any catalogs.� Reyering, who in 2013 was named an “Environmental Champion� by Woodside’s Sustainability and Conservation Committee, wrote, “The most environmentally friendly approach, by far, is not to create and ship these unnecessary, unwanted, and wasteful catalogs.� She also has sent the company a spread sheet with the names of 120 people who want to be taken off Restoration Hardware’s mailing list.
by Barbara Wood After the volunteers began bringing stacks of catalogs through the University Avenue store’s front entrance on hand trucks, store employees quickly asked the volunteers to drop the rest of their delivery at the store’s back door. At least four employees with handcarts quickly hustled the stacks of catalogs out of sight.
Reyering and the other volunteers were not buying the explanation. “They’re counting on people having really busy lives and not really thinking about it,� said Reyering, who is on Woodside’s Architectural and Site Review Board and the Open Space Committee. “I think this is crazy,� said Erin Broderick, a high school student who joined Reyering. “Grocery stores aren’t allowed to give us paper bags!� Laura Stec, who also helped return the catalogs, asked rhetorically, “What if every business did the same type of marketing?� Restoration Hardware store employees said they were not allowed to comment to the press and had no phone number for the public affairs department at corporate headquarters. When contacted via email, a company representative emailed the same flier and a link to the company’s website and ignored questions about the delivery. After receiving a 15-pound delivery of catalogs at the end of May, Reyering posted on a community website that she would collect unwanted catalogs and return them to the store. The response was a bit intimi-
‘What if every business did the same type of marketing?’ —Laura Stec, resident, Portola Valley Employees handed out fliers with what appears to be the company’s pre-printed response to complaints about the environmental effect of the catalog deliveries. “Heavier load = lighter carbon footprint,� the fliers read. “Our 13 source books now come to you just once a year, all together in one package. Combined with our carbon-neutral shipping practices and our responsibly sourced paper, that adds up to a significantly reduced impact on the environment.�
Michelle Le
Local residents bring nearly one ton of catalogs to Palo Alto store
Nancy Reyering, left, and Seldy Nelson watch as Peter Marsden pulls a dolly full of Restoration Hardware catalogs from Reyering’s house to load on his truck on June 18. dating, as local residents brought to her home nearly 2,000 pounds of catalogs, with 120 of them in unopened packages and others as loose catalogs. Scores others contacted Reyering and told her they had already recycled the catalogs or returned them to the store. “Having to take the time away from (a new baby) to get rid of that stupid catalog was really annoying,� one person wrote to her. “I am not sure RH realizes how much they have wasted people’s time in addition to wasting the Earth’s resources.� Other residents said they refused to take the catalog delivery. Reyering said people continued to bring her more catalogs each day. Her UPS deliveryman told her he had made 85 deliveries of the catalog packages in one day. One explanation for the chain’s sending out so many catalogs may be that it pays off in sales. An ar-
ticle on the Motley Fool website, which writes about investments, reads, “As the catalog shipments from Restoration Hardware have grown larger over the years, the retailer’s revenue has risen dramatically as well.� The article says that Restoration Hardware has received complaints in the past about the size and number of its catalogs, but the deliveries “did succeed in getting the retailer the attention and the customers it wanted.� Last year the company’s revenues increased by 33 percent, the website reads. There is a link on the Restoration Hardware website where people can cancel delivery of the catalogs, which the company calls “source books.� N Almanac Contributing Writer Barbara Wood can be emailed at woodsidebarbarawood@gmail. com.
LAND USE
Google expands into Stanford Research Park by Elena ountain View-based Google is continuing its quiet expansion into Palo Alto, with two new Stanford Research Park spaces joining the seven properties it purchased on East Meadow Circle in 2013. Google’s most recent lease is an office complex at 3400 Hillview Ave., where it’s moving in Nest, the “smart� thermostat and smoke-alarm company acquired by Google earlier this year for $3.2 billion. Nest will soon occupy two of the complex’s five buildings, according to building permits submitted to the city’s planning department this week. The buildings are currently occupied by Nook, Barnes and Noble’s electronic-book division. Integral, a company that provides banks and other financial institutions with software for foreign trading and risk man-
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Kadvany agement, also currently operates out of the 3400 Hillview complex. Des Architects + Engineers in Redwood City is listed as the project architect on a demolition permit application. The firm applied for the permit to knock down some interior non-structural walls for future improvements, according to project documents. Des Architects + Engineers did not immediately respond to request for comment. Though the office complex is on Stanford University land, it is one of several Stanford Research Park properties that the university subleases to another entity, commercial real-estate firm CBRE. CBRE declined to comment on the new lease with Google. “Stanford is excited that Google has decided to locate here in the Research Park again,� said Tiffa-
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Thermostat and smoke-alarm company Nest replacing Barnes and Noble’s Nook
The future home of Nest, a smart thermostat and smoke-detector company acquired by Google in February, is at 3400 Hillview Ave. in Palo Alto. ny Griego, director of asset management for Stanford Research Park. “It’s a really strong time, and there’s a lot of interest in being located in Palo Alto,� she added, citing the park’s 3 percent vacancy rate. This spring, Google also quietly took over the second floor of 975 California Ave., another Research Park property that Stanford subleases. Google applied for mi-
nor tenant improvements for the 27,000 square-foot-top floor in February; they were approved March 27, according to city planning documents. Nest is currently located close by in the research park at 900 Hansen Way. The company makes smoke and carbon monoxide alarms and “learning� thermostats that can be programmed to one’s schedule, controlled via a smartphone app and reputedly
slash energy bills. After incorporating in Menlo Park, Google headquarters moved to University Avenue in Palo Alto in 1999 before eventually relocating to its current network of buildings in Mountain View. The company did not return requests for comment on the new Palo Alto leases. N Online Editor Elena Kadvany can be emailed at ekadvany@ paweekly.com.
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