Office Depot to Celebrate Opening of New Caguas, Puerto Rico Store with Ribbon Cutting Ceremony

Office Depot (NYSE:ODP), a leading global provider of office products and services, will celebrate the opening of its fourth store in Puerto Rico – the retailer’s first in Caguas – with a Ribbon Cutting Ceremony. The ceremony is scheduled to begin at 9:00 am and be preceded by a short meet and greet at the store. The store is located at Las Catalinas Mall at the intersection of State Road 52 and Avenida Jose Garrido.

The Ribbon Cutting will be attended by the Honorable Mayor of Caguas, Willie Miranda Marin, Representatives from the Puerto Rico Chamber of Commerce, local non-profit and community organizations and Office Depot executives.

Office Depot, which has 1,680 retail store locations globally, first entered the Puerto Rico market in mid-2007 with a location in San Patricio. Two additional Office Depot stores in Guaynabo and Carolina opened in late 2007 and early 2008.

"Office Depot came to Puerto Rico with the goal of providing businesses here with exceptional value, selection, quality and service that is designed to help them grow their businesses and succeed,” said Chuck Rubin, President of North American Retail for Office Depot. "The response from the Puerto Rico community has been fantastic and we look forward to continuing to be a great business partner to current and future customers.”

Special guests scheduled to participate in the September 3 ribbon cutting include:

Non-Profit Organization Representatives:

• Cora H. Arce Rivera, Casa Protegida de Julia de Burgos, Inc.
• Sister Thelma Pujols, Hogar Del Nino, Inc.

Puerto Rico Officials:

• Mayor of Caguas, Willie Miranda Marin

"Office Depot is strongly committed to enhancing the quality of life in the communities in which we conduct business,” said Ralph Herrerias, District Manager of Puerto Rico for Office Depot. "We are excited to open our fourth Puerto Rico store location and offer our support to the Caguas community.”

About the New Office Depot Store in Caguas

The new Caguas store will be led by Store Manager Raquel Martinez. According to Martinez, the store features Office Depot’s industry-leading M2 retail format. M2 offers customers the most enjoyable shopping experience in the industry – in a format that is intuitive, logical and designed specifically for the way people make purchase decisions.

Products are grouped in highly visible, strategically located "pods,” with core supplies at the outer perimeter of the store – signed for optimal visibility and easy purchase – and furniture and technology at the center – to better support consultative sales.

The new Office Depot store employs approximately 20 full- and part-time associates. It houses more than 7,500 technology, furniture and supply products as well as Design, Print and Ship services in 21,962 square feet of customer space.

Store hours are Monday through Friday 8:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m.; Saturday 9:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m.; and Sunday 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. The telephone number for the store is 787-744-2579.

Taking Care of the Community

Office Depot is committed to the communities in which our associates live and work. Through the Company’s Community Relations department and the independent Office Depot Foundation, Office Depot partners with local communities, schools, organizations and businesses to support a variety of activities, including the Office Depot Foundation’s National Backpack Program. Since the program’s inception, Office Depot has given more than 1.5 million children new backpacks to get ready for school. In 2006, Office Depot joined with Feed The Children to provide thousands of backpacks to children designated by the Ricky Martin Foundation in Puerto Rico. In 2008, the Foundation donated backpacks to Case Protegida De Julia De Burgos, Inc. and Hogar Del Nino, Inc. To learn more about the Office Depot Foundation, visit www.officedepotfoundation.org.

Taking Care of the Environment

Office Depot’s longstanding commitment to the environment is guided by the Company’s environmental vision to increasingly buy green, be green and sell green. Since 2003, Office Depot has developed and implemented a number of "green” initiatives, including:

• Creating The Green Book catalog of thousands of environmentally-friendly products and educational content for Office Depot’s small, medium and large business customers;
• Establishing a $2.2 million Forest & Biodiversity Conservation Alliance through which Office Depot partnered with Conservation International, NatureServe and The Nature Conservancy to resolve real issues in the forestry sector to guide our sustainable efforts;
• Developing a Paper Purchasing Policy through which we became the first office supply company to make Forest Stewardship Council certified paper widely available in the U.S.;
• Reducing the Company’s overall Carbon Dioxide emissions output from 2005 - 2006 by 10.1 percent;
• Retrofitting the lighting in the Company’s North American retail store chain to T5 high-output fluorescent lighting, which is 35 percent more efficient than traditional, incandescent lighting;
• Replacing our fleet of "box trucks” to ultra-low-emission "Sprinter” vehicles, which are on average 40 percent more fuel-efficient than their predecessors and get an estimated 15 or more miles per gallon; and
• Opening of the Company’s first "Green” store, which will be Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Certified by the U.S. Green Building Council. Additionally, achieving volume pre-certification from the USGBC on store prototype.

A complete overview of Office Depot’s environmental programs is available here.

To learn more about Office Depot’s environmental initiatives, please visit http://mediarelations.officedepot.cc/environment.

About Office Depot

Every day, Office Depot is Taking Care of Business for millions of customers around the globe. For the local corner store as well as Fortune 500 companies, Office Depot provides products and services to its customers through 1,680 worldwide retail stores, a dedicated sales force, top-rated catalogs and a $5.0 billion e-commerce operation. Office Depot has annual sales of approximately $15.4 billion, and employs about 49,000 associates around the world. The Company provides more office products and services to more customers in more countries than any other company, and currently sells to customers directly or through affiliates in 44 countries.

Office Depot’s common stock is listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol ODP and is included in the S&P 500 Index. Additional press information can be found at: http://mediarelations.officedepot.com.