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NEW ANGLE

The Corner brings urban street-front style to Bellevue Square

By Donna Mitchell

People will soon be hanging out at The Corner at Bellevue (Wash.) Square, one of the most successful U.S. malls. But they are not just loiterers to be chased away.

On the contrary, they are consumers welcome to mill around and enjoy a new retail and restaurant expansion modeled in the style of an urban street, or relax after a day of hunting for merchandise in a public space called The Lodge.

Crate & Barrel anchors The Corner at Bellevue Square, which features The Lodge, an upscale relaxation space with leather couches and a stone fireplace.

The Corner at Bellevue Square is a new addition to the super-regional mall Bellevue Square, owned by the Kemper Development Co. of Bellevue, Wash. It adds 110,000 square feet of space to the existing mall and brings its total square footage to 1.3 million. An important element of the project is a Crate & Barrel store, which enjoyed enough local demand to spur a 10-year effort to make the street retail concept happen. The Corner opened in two phases, beginning last November when the retailer opened a 35,000-square-foot space to anchor the new section. The remaining retail space in The Corner began opening in March, and the entire addition should be in full operation by this month.

As its name suggests, the addition is at the crossroads of one of Bellevue’s busiest areas, at the corner of NE Eighth Street and Bellevue Way.

The Corner features Borders Books & Music and several restaurants, including P.F. Chang’s China Bistro, Z’Tejas Southwestern Grill and coffee purveyor Starbucks.

Crate & Barrel’s profile is especially high, thanks to a lot of pent-up anticipation for the store among all parties: the Northbrook, Ill.-based company itself, Kemper Development and the consumers. The nearest Crate & Barrel store is located 850 miles to the south in San Francisco.

Kemper Freeman Jr., owner and CEO of Bellevue Square Managers and Kemper Development and Gordon Segal, founder and CEO of Crate & Barrel, were both eager to include the store in the project.

"When we met 10 years ago, we virtually decided we would do this. The question was how, when and how big," said Freeman.

Bette Kahn, spokeswoman for Crate & Barrel, which operates 98 stores, said the company sees loads of catalog sales in the Seattle market, which includes Bellevue. "Many of the responses we got [on feedback cards] were consumers asking us to come into the market," she said. "But we never felt that there was the right place at the right time. Gordon felt that people didn’t have time anymore to walk through malls. They wanted to go in, get their merchandise and walk out. We wanted easy access for the consumers."

As for why Segal likes The Corner, "[Bellevue Square] is appropriate for the market and better priced than downtown Seattle," he said. "You always look for a balance between appropriate real estate and its price." ??? Bellevue Square posts sales of about $600 per square foot and serves an affluent area. The average household income of people living within 2 miles of the mall is $116,000 for 2001, according to Hebert Research of Bellevue.

The available vacant spaces in the mall were simply too small for what Crate & Barrel wanted, said Jim Melby, president of Kemper Development. The company looks for 20,000-square-foot spaces and larger, but Bellevue Square only had vacancies of up to 11,000 square feet.

However, during one negotiation, Melby recalled, Crate & Barrel officials asked about some space on a site plan between the street and a parking garage. "It was nothing more than some lines on a drawing," Melby said. "They inquired about it, and it became the start of The Corner project. We would not begin construction until we had someone in that space," he said, noting that the hole needed to be filled before the project began in earnest.

Aside from being a snug fit for Crate & Barrel, the expansion had other essential reasons to exist. The Corner is considered an important part of the future expansion of Bellevue Square. The L-shaped addition puts a retail face on what used to be a six-level parking garage facing passersby on the street. It wraps around the parking garage at the corner and connects to the existing shopping center.

When the parking deck was built in 1982, Kemper Development set the structure back from the street knowing that they would add retail space on the corner at a later time. The company had contemplated The Corner project since 1983, according to Freeman. But he said plans could not go ahead then because "the market was nowhere near to accepting it at the time."

But times have changed.

"There are a lot of things happening in downtown Bellevue that lend themselves to pedestrians," said Jennifer Leavitt, vice president of marketing for Bellevue Square Managers. "One of the things people are looking for is the charm and feel of an urban streetfront, and this is the first opportunity to do that."

For one, there is a clearly defined central business district, about 12 square blocks, surrounded by affluent suburban neighborhoods partially occupied by well-heeled executives at technology firms. And more high-priced condominiums are being built in the city. Freeman said that between 6,000 and 7,000 residents live in downtown Bellevue, and that number is expected to reach up to 10,000 within two years.

The Corner is the second significant renovation that Bellevue Square, built in 1946, has undergone. The first was a massive project in 1980 that converted the mall from its original open-air lifestyle center configuration. But appearances aside, The Corner is not an attempt by Kemper Development to return Bellevue Square to its open-air roots. "Bellevue is evolving from a bedroom community," said Melby. "There is a wonderful blend of more and more urban fabric [into the city] while retaining the advantage of the suburbs. The overall design of the center indicated that there would be an ability to do The Corner."

Pedestrians now see a row of varying storefronts resembling brownstone townhouses. The Corner’s street-level storefronts will each house a different retailer or eatery. "The concept behind The Corner was to create the look of six different buildings," said Dan Meyers, Kemper Development’s vice president of construction and design. Meyers collaborated with the architectural firm that designed The Corner, Sclater Partners of Seattle. "They all look like they were built at different times by different architects. And the design represents what the tenants sell."

For instance, the frontage for Borders Books & Music comes together to give the look of a traditional library, Meyers said. Sclater Partners wanted the look of a motley collection of buildings with varying rooflines, like a section of a city skyline, while the interior of The Corner emulates a European street scene. The architects chose quarry tile for the ground, and Meyers said its strong reddish color duplicates the look of a cobblestone street.

For all that assortment, the architects found a way to unify The Corner by, for instance, attaching glass awnings along the entire length of the sidewalks.

Another featured area of the expansion is The Lodge, a 4,000-square-foot public circulation and relaxation space that opened in early April. The Lodge includes leather couches and a stone fireplace fueled by gas. The floor is made of concrete with wood inlays, and the ceiling features heavy timber beams that jut out through the glass facade. Freeman said that his company would move some of its management offices from Bellevue Place, the company’s retail, hotel and office property across the street, into the third-floor space above Crate & Barrel. The move is in keeping with Freeman’s preference for having mall management close to its property. It may also reflect the methodical approach to growth that he said that he shares with Segal. "We were on the same wavelength," Freeman said of himself and Segal. "This is a very human business we’re in."

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