Foot Locker’s HQ Move to Florida Just Got One Step Closer to Reality
Foot Locker just got one step closer to moving its global headquarters to St. Petersburg, Fla.
On Monday, the national real estate investment firm The Feil Organization disclosed that the sneaker retailer had signed a long-term office lease for a 110,998-sq.-ft. space in St. Petersburg.
Located at 570 Carillon Parkway, the company is expected to move into the new space sometime this year.
Frank Bracken, the newly appointed president of Foot Locker, Inc., said in a statement that the move will help accelerate the company’s Lace Up Plan, the company’s strategy announced in 2023 to elevate the omni-retail experience, enhance productivity and create long-term shareholder value.
“We believe the metropolitan Tampa Bay area provides the perfect environment to align our internal teams, attract top talent, and connect with the local community,” Bracken said. “With many of our team members already calling this city home, we’re excited to deepen our roots, foster connectivity, and create greater alignment and inspiration for our team and brand partners to bring sneaker culture to life.”
In August, the sneaker retailer announced that it would make the move to St. Petersburg in 2025 while maintaining a smaller presence in its current New York City office.
“St. Petersburg has always been a center of gravity for the company,” Foot Locker president and chief executive officer Mary Dillon told FN in an interview at the time. “Champs is headquartered there. We have a large center of gravity with executives already there across many of our commercial functions. And so for us, it’s an opportunity to bring together more of our team in one place, to drive more collaboration across the business. But we’re also going to keep a presence in New York to keep us connected to sneaker culture and basketball culture.”
From Foot Locker’s perspective, the move will help cut costs, and the company says it will drive collaboration among teams in a location where many employees are already based. As for New York, Dillon said the retailer will maintain a smaller presence in the city to keep it “connected to sneaker culture and basketball culture.”
Foot Locker’s latest move comes just weeks after it delivered fourth quarter results above its previously revised expectations, as the company noted that investments and execution drove positive comparable sales and “meaningful” gross margin improvement compared to the prior year.
Total sales in the fourth quarter of 2024 were $2.24 billion, down 5.8 percent from $2.38 billion the same time in 2023. Net income from continuing operations was $55 million, as compared with net loss of $389 million in the prior-year period.
For the full fiscal year of 2024, Foot Locker said total revenue was $7.99 billion, down from $8.17 billion in fiscal 2023. Net income from continuing operations in the year was 18 million, up from a $330 million loss last year.
Looking ahead, the company expects sales for fiscal 2025 to range between a 1 percent decrease and a 0.5 percent gain, with comparable sales to increase between 1 percent and 2.5 percent.