The Shops at The Bravern shaking up retail scene in Bellevue

When it comes to upscale shopping in downtown Bellevue, Kemper Freeman pretty much has had the place all to himself.

So you might expect the third-generation owner of Bellevue Square to feel something other than "lucky" ahead of this week's opening of The Shops at The Bravern, a nearby development with the Northwest's only Neiman Marcus store — a name he had once hoped to bring to the Eastside.

But then, who would want to open a posh new shopping center in the current recession? Not Freeman, apparently.

"All the top-end stuff has become momentarily unfashionable," Freeman said in a recent interview at his Bellevue Square offices. "It doesn't matter if someone can afford all the Chanel in the whole store. They don't want to look like they're showing off."

Clearly, Bravern developer Schnitzer West is shaking up the downtown Bellevue shopping scene in a way that perhaps no one besides the Freeman family has for the past six decades. When Neiman opens its 41st full-line clothing store Friday at The Bravern, it'll be stepping onto Nordstrom's home turf, only a few blocks from where the Seattle retailer does some of its biggest business.

And while Freeman might not be inclined to characterize a recent $40 million-plus remodel of Bellevue Square as a pre-emptive move against The Bravern, the fact is, he's been making changes to the 1.3 million-square-foot mall. For starters, the remodel is seen as helping to attract new clothiers to a stretch of storefronts near Nordstrom, including 7 For All Mankind and Michael Kors.

Freeman said he plans to fill that stretch with 35 like-minded retailers over the next five years, creating "an offering equal to or better than anything The Bravern has, so a shopper can come here and get the high-end experience, as well as what I'd call the normal experience."

The recession caused Freeman's Kemper Development Co., which also owns Lincoln Square and Bellevue Place, to put off plans for a fancy new collection of stores opening onto Bellevue Way Northeast, he said, and it has hurt business. Steady increases in year-over-year sales at Bellevue Square suddenly stopped, and the mall's vacancy rate is somewhere between 4 and 6 percent, instead of 3 percent.

The Bravern's 305,000-square-foot shopping center is part of a larger development next to the Meydenbauer Center off Interstate 405. About two dozen shops and restaurants — including Wild Ginger and Louis Vuitton — are topped by two office towers leased to Microsoft and 455 condos under construction in another two buildings. The shopping center opens Saturday with about 85 percent of its space filled, according to Schnitzer West.

Tom Woodworth, senior investment director at the Seattle development company, said he remains upbeat, despite the recession, partly because of the Eastside's affluence, and also because of The Bravern's retail tenant roster.

"Did it get frothy in 2007 and 2006, in terms of people's buying habits? Undeniably, it did," he said. "But there is a segment in the marketplace that still wants great fashion."

For retail analyst Patty Edwards, though, the question is whether there are enough of those people to support The Bravern, especially now that the recession seems to have ushered in a new era of frugality.

Neiman, which takes up nearly half of The Bravern, is known for its extravagant holiday gift catalog and pricey designer apparel by the likes of Stella McCartney and Diane Von Furstenberg.

"This is not your normal recession," said Edwards, founder of the Bellevue investment-management firm Storehouse Partners. "People are resetting what they believe is normal and what they believe they should be spending. It has changed buying habits for a very long time."

Meanwhile, Blake Nordstrom, president of the Seattle chain that bears his family's name, said the company isn't doing anything "specific" in anticipation of The Bravern's opening.

A recent remodel of Nordstrom's Bellevue Square store — one of its top performers nationally — had nothing to do with The Bravern, he said, noting that it's simply "important we as merchants be on our game there."

Nordstrom entered Neiman's home turf in 1996 and now has four full-line stores in the Dallas area, "a good market for us," he said.

While the retailers carry some overlapping items, "you're not going to find the majority of what's in a Nordstrom store in a Neiman store," especially at the lower end of the price range, Edwards said. "The average shopper is not going to go from buying a $200 jacket at Nordstrom to an $800 or $1,000 jacket at Neiman."

Several years ago, Freeman recalled, he almost landed Neiman. Nowadays, he said, he hopes to attract a department store along the lines of Bloomingdale's or Saks Fifth Avenue.

If he had his way, he said, Neiman would still be opening in Bellevue, just not three to four blocks down Northeast Eighth Avenue. "For us to get synergy from them, or for them to get synergy from us, they need to be within two blocks," he said.

Even so, he said, he wishes The Bravern well, if for no other reason than it could affect his ability to sell other retailers on downtown Bellevue.

"If they don't do well, will it sour the market for luxury retail? I worry about that," he said. "It's in our very best interest for them to do well."

Amy Martinez: 206-464-2923 or amartinez@seattletimes.com