The former Old Navy storefront at 511 Pine Street in downtown Seattle may soon have a new tenant: Alo Yoga. Permit records show the athleisure and lifestyle brand has signaled plans to update the building's interior and exterior storefront, a move that would give the Los Angeles-founded label its second Washington location.
According to The Seattle Times, which first reported the filing, Alo Yoga already operates a store at Bellevue Square and did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the Pine Street plans. The outlet notes the building sits just steps from Pacific Place.
A Downtown Retail Gap Opens Up
Lululemon had anchored the nearby Pacific Place mall since 2008, according to the Puget Sound Business Journal. Yet the brand hasn't abandoned the neighborhood entirely — Lululemon actually doubled its corporate office footprint downtown in May 2025, expanding to 46,000 square feet across two floors at 1191 2nd Avenue, per The Real Deal. That tower, 2nd + Seneca, also counts Uber among its corporate anchor tenants.
The timing lines up with a broader stabilization in Seattle's retail market. Direct retail vacancy across the Puget Sound market sat at 3.9% in the second quarter of 2026, with average asking rents holding at $1.95 per square foot, according to a Kidder Mathews report cited by Connect CRE. The outlet notes that smaller-format and service-oriented tenants have been driving leasing demand as vacancy holds near historic lows.
Young Residents, Thinner Office Crowds
Downtown Seattle's residential base has swelled in recent years, which could help explain why a youth-skewing brand like Alo Yoga sees an opening. The Downtown Seattle Association's 2026 Economic Report found downtown's residential population hit a record 109,845 in 2025, with a median age of 33.7 and 40% of residents falling into the prime 25-to-44 consumer bracket — a population that has grown 80% since 2010.
Office-worker foot traffic tells a different story. A separate October 2026 Downtown Seattle Association report found Seattle lost roughly 18,000 jobs between 2024 and 2025, with 13,000 of those losses concentrated downtown, leaving workforce levels 22% below 2019 even as neighboring Bellevue and Tacoma posted employment gains over the same period.
Alo's Rise Against an Established Rival
Alo Yoga has existed since 2007 but didn't break into the mainstream until around 2019, when paparazzi photos of Kendall Jenner, Hailey Bieber, Gigi Hadid and Taylor Swift wearing the brand helped fuel its popularity, particularly among Gen Z and Gen Alpha shoppers. That momentum has translated into market share: Piper Sandler's semi-annual teen survey found in October 2026 that Alo Yoga surpassed Lululemon in teen brand recognition for the first time, according to Seeking Alpha.
Foot-traffic data backs up the shift toward the newer brand. Retail analytics firm PassBy reported in April 2026 that Alo Yoga posted a 7.5% year-over-year increase in same-store visitor traffic across 88 locations, while Lululemon saw a 3.1% decline across 395 locations over the same 12-month stretch. PassBy says Alo had more than 100 stores by the end of 2024. Its parent company, Color Image Apparel, confirmed in June 2026 that it plans to sell its wholesale T-shirt division, Bella+Canvas, as it prepares for a possible Alo Yoga IPO or sale, Reuters reported.
Logistics Investment Fuels Store Growth
The potential Seattle storefront follows other signs of expansion for the brand. Alo Yoga picked Southaven for a $176M hub this month, a 1.2 million-square-foot national fulfillment and distribution project in Southaven, Mississippi, expected to create more than 400 regional jobs to support its direct-to-consumer and retail growth.
The 511 Pine Street building also sits beside Pacific Place.
The filing points to a possible Alo Yoga storefront at 511 Pine Street.
