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Nike’s downtown Portland store, Nike Portland, is back up and running, in more ways than one.
A sneak peek of Nike Portland reveals that the company is focusing on running shoes, apparel and history at its newly remodeled retail store at 638 SW Fifth Ave. There’s flooring made to look like track lanes, a landscape photo of Hayward Field at University of Oregon, and a museum-style exhibition of 50 years of racing spikes.
“We started on the tracks of Oregon and for us to focus on running in the epicenter here in Portland made sense,” Tim Rupp, Nike’s senior director of North America retail design and experiences, said at a tour of the renovated digs.
Closed since late 2023, the store is located in the historic Kress Building and reopens to the public Nov. 13. (And it’s not the only locally-headquartered retailer with a grand opening this week: Columbia Sportswear will reopen its flagship store at 911 SW Broadway Nov. 14.) Nike has had a store on Fifth Avenue since 2011; before that was NikeTown on Southwest Sixth Avenue and Salmon Street, which opened in 1990.
Shoppers will enter through the Fifth Avenue doors into a glass entryway with digital videos of Nike athletes above the door. The experience is supposed to mimic the effect of an athlete entering a stadium through a tunnel, Rupp says.
The 7,500 square-foot retail space features 18-foot ceilings that allow for enormous imagery of Nike athletes such as runners Eliud Kipchoge and Faith Kipyegon, and basketball players Caitlin Clark and Luka Doncic. The centerpiece of the store is dedicated to running footwear and flanked with huge images of Hayward Field at University of Oregon and the track at Nike headquarters in Beaverton, formally called Philip H. Knight Campus (PHK for short) as of last month.
Special Portland merch includes a Nike Run T-shirt that says “There’s no such thing as bad weather, just soft people,” and one that says “Portland Swoosh City.” In addition to the running focus, Nike Portland also has sections for men’s and women’s performance apparel and sportswear, Jordan-brand and other basketball gear, and a kids’ area.
Nike permanently closed its community store at 2650 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., in 2023 due to theft and safety concerns, the company said at the time.
“We’re super proud to be back in downtown to help with the reenergizing and bring back the energy that we can bring and get people in the right gear,” Rupp says.
GO: Nike Portland, 638 SW Fifth Ave. 503-221-6453, nike.com/retail/s/nike-portland. 10 am-7 pm Monday- Saturday, 11 am-6 pm Sunday.
