Making Mall Talk
It seems blogville is all abuzz with mall talk lately, so, I thought I’d chime in. The developers of the Space Available Mall by my house continue to talk about big plans for the place, yet, I’m just not seeing anything. Though they boast “over 90 stores”, you can’t even buy a decent pair of jeans in there right now, unless the Asian Import Fishing Lure and Scented Candle stores start sellng Sevens or something.
Anway, my theory about Bellevue Center is that it’s just ahead of it’s time. I think that it is a great location to meet the needs of a growing population west of the city, it’s just not time yet. Poor choices regarding original tennants combined with the outlandish real estate prices in the surrounding areas doomed it from the start.
While the population in the area may not ever support “exclusive” stores, there’s no need to make all the stores bargain priced or just provide “shells” of normal stores. Even when the mall had real stores, they were scaled down versions of what other malls have. It was a cycle that the familiar stores didn’t have a full stock, so no one shopped. Since no one shopped, they didn’t carry full inventories.
It’s a long standing problem in Bellevue, but, something needs to be done about the disproportionately steep real estate prices to allow quality development (actual restaurants, anyone?) in the mall area so that it becomes a destination if they want the mall to work.