Patagonia Baltimore Does a Lot More Than Sell Jackets

A few hundred cobblestone-covered yards away from the moored boats and mewing seagulls of Fells Point’s harbor stands the circa-1882 brick warehouse that houses Patagonia Baltimore. Inside, skylights illuminate the lofty, 15,000-square-foot, brick-and-beam former boathouse, now filled with racks of Patagonia gear.

Turkish rugs cover the cement floors. A long wooden communal table is at the center, near a model of a boat that’s an attraction for the kids and dogs that sometimes outnumber shoppers. And if you look up, above all the raincoats and fleece vests and puffer jackets, you can see the Steampunk remnants of two enormous metal-and-wood cranes, relics of the building’s shipbuilding origins.

When Patagonia Baltimore opened in November 2022, it became the Ventura, California-based company’s largest store. Of the 70 Patagonia stores worldwide, 40 are in North America, and only six are outlets—hybrid stores where current-season clothing and gear are sold in addition to heavily discounted past-season stock—of which Patagonia Baltimore is the latest.

“It’s the biggest [Patagonia] store in the world,” says store manager Craig Orn, sitting at that communal table on a recent morning.

On a nearby column is a chalkboard that serves as the month’s activity calendar and lists the events the store has organized: community hikes, bike rides, and runs; morning yoga sessions; book club meetings; in-house movie nights; environ- mental clean-ups; and, yes, outlet sales.

“Every weekend, we have some kind of core sport,” says Orn. “If something aligns with our values, we want to be able to support the community.”

He emphasizes the importance of getting out into that community as much as outfitting it, because Patagonia has always been as much about what you do with its gear as the gear itself.

Patagonia was founded in 1973 by Yvon Chouinard, now 85, a former rock climber, environmentalist, businessman, philanthropist, and self-taught blacksmith who was named one of Time’s 100 most influential people in the world last year. Chouinard also made headlines in 2022, when he transferred ownership of Patagonia to the Patagonia Purpose Trust, the profits from which are to address climate change and to protect land.

“Our owner now is technically the Earth,” says Ty Baxter, Patagonia Baltimore’s assistant store manager.

Beyond and above the showroom, there are the offices, meeting rooms, a fully equipped kitchen (recycling, composting), and high-ceilinged storerooms comprising an additional 15,000 square feet of space. Repeating rows of labeled cardboard boxes stuffed with clothing are stacked on shelves that extend from one room to another like an old-school library or government archive.

So why, of all the neighborhoods in all the cities in America, did Patagonia pick Fells Point for their biggest store yet? Baltimore, explains Baxter, sits on the Eastern Seaboard in a storeless gap between New York City and Virginia, where Patagonia has locations, and builds on a store and a market already in D.C.

“They centralized in Baltimore,” he says. It didn’t hurt that our rents are cheaper than D.C.’s and that this is an old port city, built by people who worked on the water and populated by people who—especially after the recent clean-harbor swim and celebration and Katie Pumphrey’s swim from the Bay Bridge to the Inner Harbor—understand its value.

“A lot of big things are based in Baltimore, environmentally speaking,” says Baxter. “The National Aquarium is here, Chesapeake Bay Foundation, [Ocean City-based environmental nonprofit] Surfrider Foundation has a chapter in Annapolis, and then grassroots organizations like Blue Water Baltimore, Backyard Basecamp, Waterkeepers Chesapeake, Pigtown Climbs.

“The outdoorsy people saw a lot of environmental work being done,” he continues, noting the proximity of the Baltimore store to Living Classrooms, the environmental education nonprofit a block away; the light-rail network; and all the new construction along the Inner Harbor. “I think they got into Baltimore at a good time. Our stores are meant to be a resource for the community, so we thought we could do some good here.”

That good translates into a lot more than discounted gear. Every Patagonia retail store has a grant process and an amount of money to award annually.

“It’s really down to the local store level to decide who’s going to be able to apply for those grants, with some guidelines from our corporate structures,” says Baxter of the Baltimore store. “The goal is to connect with local nonprofits at the grassroots level fighting the environmental crisis.”

Before the Baltimore store had even opened, its staff had already connected with Blue Water Baltimore, the environmental nonprofit that acts as a watchdog for the area’s waterways, to be the first nonprofit partner. Since then, five more grantees have been added, a process that happens every year, when new organizations are added or subtracted or grants are renewed. Backyard Base Camp, Chesapeake Legal Alliance, and Waterfront Partnership have been among the grantees.

“We support local, grassroots, environmental organizations,” says Baxter. Grants vary in size, but typically range from $5,000 to $20,000 per year. “Baltimore’s grants are general operating grants; we don’t stipulate what organizations use it for. Grassroots environmental issues are the key thing.”

Patagonia has three ways of funding: through retail stores, through corporate grants, and through international grants. Community work also extends to making product donations, volunteering hours—Patagonia pays for its staff to volunteer 18 hours per year—and hosting events for groups in Patagonia’s large space.

“THE PEOPLE WHO ARE THE MOST OBVIOUS ADVOCATES FOR CLEAN WATER ARE THE PEOPLE ON THE WATER.”

Area cleanups in city parks are a pivotal part of Patagonia’s outreach and community service. Recent cleanups have been organized in Patterson Park, Druid Hill Park, and Middle Branch Park, both on the shore and in the water. Co-hosted by Baltimore City Recreation & Parks and Blue Water Baltimore, the Middle Branch Park cleanup was one of the largest put together so far, with 50 volunteers helping to collect more than 500 pounds of trash and recyclables.

Alice Volpitta, a water quality scientist for Blue Water Baltimore and the nonprofit’s Baltimore Harbor Waterkeeper, was on hand, helping to direct the cleanup. Volunteers, including a large group from Canton Kayak Club, paddled around the park and nearby marina in kayaks and canoes, filling bags with trash, much of it including plastic bottles that were later tallied and recycled. Then Patagonia fed the crowd with a barbecue, presented talks by activists and hosts, and collected signatures to support a proposed state Bottle Bill to incentivize recycling. Patagonia Baltimore hasn’t supported other legislation so far, but the Bottle Bill is something they’re particularly eager to get behind.

“Our partnership with Patagonia began years ago,” Volpitta says, noting how individual store employees are the ones making Patagonia’s grant-allocation decisions. “It’s hyper-local, which is really cool.”

Before Patagonia opened the Baltimore store, Waterkeepers in other areas had gotten funding through Patagonia, but not Blue Water Baltimore, as funding is tied to local stores. As soon as Baltimore Patagonia opened, says Volpitta, her nonprofit was able to get funding, and has since partnered with them on events.

“The other really cool thing about Patagonia is that they’re not afraid to be advocates. Because the people who are the most obvious advocates for clean water are the people on the water,” Volpitta continues. “I think it’s just a really natural relationship,” she says of partnering with Patagonia.

“When we talk among our staff about issues that are important to us, water quality is one of the big ones,” says Baxter. “Obviously, the Chesapeake Bay comes right to our doorstep. It’s all really connected.”

Those connections—between water and land, commerce and environment, gear and what you do with it—are what Patagonia continues to underscore.

It’s worth noting that their stuff is not cheap, in terms of price or quality. These are not the products found in Targets or other big-box retailers’ outdoor clothing sections, but high-quality, long-lasting sports, mountain, and water gear—most of which can be worn casually that is now almost entirely made of recycled materials. Making stuff that lasts and is durable enough to withstand heavy use in sometimes seriously inclement conditions is important, even lifesaving. After all, Patagonia did start as a rock-climbing equipment company.

It’s also good PR, as a recent tongue-in-cheek documentary from Patagonia Films called The Shitthropocene demonstrates. The 45-minute film, which was shown on one of the Fells store’s movie nights, is described as “an anthropological exploration of humanity’s consumption habits, turning a satirical yet brutally honest eye on how everything is turning to shit and why the impulse toward buying more crap might destroy us all.” Imagine an Afterschool Special crossed with District 9—and yes, a clothing company advocating against buying more stuff.

“We really want to be a hub, even if you don’t shop here for our clothes,” says David Smith, the store’s “customer experience guide.” (Patagonia’s hyper-earnest job titles are not parodied in their recent doc, perhaps a missed opportunity.) “That’s why I think all of us are here. That’s why we’re able to throw ourselves into all of these different activities and events.”

With a decade’s worth of previous experience  running bookstores, Smith takes a particular interest in Patagonia’s book club. The club, which meets the last Tuesday of each month and usually draws over a dozen people, features books that Patagonia has under its imprint like Tools for Grassroots Activists by Nora Gallagher and Lisa Myers, a recent pick. The idea is not just to sell books, Smith says, but to engage with both books and readers, inviting speakers and dialog. Smith, who has young kids and is himself a writer, is hoping to feature the one children’s book that Patagonia has so far published, a bilingual storybook in both English and Spanish.

If the Fells Point store serves as a locus for books and movies, it’s Baltimore’s outdoors that is the locus of most of Patagonia’s events. One weekend, the store’s activism lead, Alicia Goodrich, might be bagging trash at the Middle Branch cleanup; another, leading a hike through Druid Hill Park with her dogs.

In her role, she helps support volunteers, heads up events, and coordinates with nonprofits. She also helps connect the nonprofits the company funds to store employees, both in Baltimore and company-wide, like Vincent Stanley, Patagonia’s director of philosophy—yes, that’s his actual title—and one of Patagonia’s original employees, who virtually attended a recent book club meeting.

“If we give more data to legislators,” Goodrich says about the cleanup events, which meticulously document what’s cleaned up and where, “and if we can throw a party alongside it, can volunteering become contagious? Can it be something that we’re just crazy excited to do?”

For Patagonia’s staff, at least, those are rhetorical questions. It’s one thing to organize cleanups and provide free yoga classes, but what of the larger issue of rampant consumerism that Patagonia’s cheeky doc highlights? Patagonia is, after all, a store that sells fancy ski overalls and reversible hoodies for babies.

“The clothing industry at large contributes, like, 10 percent to the climate crisis, which is massive,” says Baxter. “And a main way of changing that is being in the industry ourselves. Patagonia recognizes that we’re part of the problem. We’re really ramping up the worn wear, upcycling, and reusing.”

Goodrich considers Baltimore an ideal community to continue that project. “I think Baltimore is the perfect city to have people come together around [the idea of reuse]—like clothing swaps and learning how to repair. I love working with Bmore Fabric Swap,” she says, calling out the semi-annual event from Baltimore’s sewing community that not only trades materials but donates any leftovers.

“More and more of our line is recycled or preferred material,” says Baxter. “We use some bio-based material, like a natural rubber versus a urethane or oil-based rubber, which goes into our wetsuits. This season something like 94 percent of our line is recycled material. And when we redesign a product, part of the designer’s intention is to make it more repairable.”

Patagonia has a repair service, in which items with, say, a broken zipper or a tear can be fixed and returned for free. The idea, of course, is that the gear and clothing is durable, but also that it’s made so that if it rips or breaks, it can be repaired, which is less and less the case in our disposable world.

In the Fells store on a recent morning, shoppers slalomed around the racks and displays—Patagonia books, tinned fish from Patagonia Provisions, an installation highlighting the city’s waterways and how Blue Water Baltimore works to protect them—checking out deeply discounted merchandise. Some folks, already spent by another August heatwave, lounged on couches arranged around a coffee table. A dog fell asleep on the floor. It all resembled someone’s living room, albeit someone with a lot of very nice, often waterproof clothes.