Bellevue Square is a shopping center in

Bellevue Bellevue means "beautiful view" in French. It may refer to: Placenames Australia * Bellevue, Western Australia * Bellevue Hill, New South Wales * Bellevue, Queensland * Bellevue, Glebe, an historic house in Sydney, New South Wales Canada ...

, Washington. The mall has over 200 retail stores with anchors

Macy's Macy's (originally R. H. Macy & Co.) is an American chain of high-end department stores founded in 1858 by Rowland Hussey Macy. It became a division of the Cincinnati-based Federated Department Stores in 1994, through which it is affiliated wi ...

and

Nordstrom Nordstrom, Inc. () is an American luxury department store chain headquartered in Seattle, Washington, and founded by John W. Nordstrom and Carl F. Wallin in 1901. The original Wallin & Nordstrom store operated exclusively as a shoe store, a ...

. Bellevue Square also offers concierge services, valet parking, and a children's play area. It and the connecting Lincoln Square comprise The Bellevue Collection. Bellevue Square attracts over 23 million visitors annually () and had sales of over $1,000 per square foot in 2016. Bellevue Square is among the minority of class A malls that are privately held and not owned by a public Real Estate Investment Trust.

History

Bellevue Square was first opened on August 20, 1946, trading under the name "Bellevue Shopping Square", with the first suburban department store opened by Marshall Field & Co. through its

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

-based subsidiary, Frederick & Nelson. With the mall's name shortened to Bellevue Square a few years later, JCPenney opened a store in 1955. Nordstrom, then a local

shoe store Shoemaking is the process of making footwear. Originally, shoes were made one at a time by hand, often by groups of shoemakers, or cobblers (also known as '' cordwainers''). In the 18th century, dozens or even hundreds of masters, journeymen ...

, opened in 1958, before adding apparel and becoming the third major anchor in 1966, initially under the name Nordstrom Best. In the 1980s, the mall, then led by the original developer's son, Kemper Freeman Jr., expanded in several phases, finally adding a location for the Seattle-based department store

The Bon Marché The Bon Marché, whose French name translates to "the good market" or "the good deal", was a department store chain launched in Seattle, Washington, United States, in 1890 by Edward Nordhoff. The name was influenced by Le Bon Marché, the note ...

in 1984. In 1992, with the bankruptcy and closure of Frederick & Nelson and collapse of a deal to lease part of the vacated space to

Saks Fifth Avenue Saks Fifth Avenue (originally Saks & Company; colloquially Saks) is an American luxury department store chain headquartered in New York City and founded by Andrew Saks. The original store opened in the F Street shopping district of Washington ...

, the center used the opportunity to reconfigure the vacant anchor as mall shop space. 1994 saw the addition of a separate The Bon Marché Home Store, while Nordstrom expanded the size of their store by half. In 2003, The Bon Marché stores were renamed Bon-Macy's, and in 2005 they adopted the name

. In 2007, Bellevue Square was linked by a skybridge to Lincoln Square, another Kemper Freeman owned property which opened in 2005 and expanded in 2017. Together, they form part of the "Bellevue Collection", which spans several blocks of Downtown Bellevue. In September 2014,

JCPenney Penney OpCo LLC, doing business as JCPenney and often abbreviated JCP, is a midscale American department store chain operating 667 stores across 49 U.S. states and Puerto Rico. Departments inside JCPenney stores include Mens, Womens, Boys, Gir ...

announced that it was closing its store after staying in the mall for 55 years. The 200,000 square foot area was converted into smaller retail stores in May 2015 for the following holiday season including UNIQLO and Zara. On May 31, 2020, much of the interior of Bellevue Square (which had been closed for two months in response to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...

) was damaged by looters in a downtown riot. It was staged by organized gang members amid the

George Floyd protests The George Floyd protests were a series of protests and civil unrest against police brutality and racism that began in Minneapolis on May 26, 2020, and largely took place during 2020. The civil unrest and protests began as part of internat ...

that had begun in the area. The mall was later secured by Bellevue Police and the

Washington National Guard The Washington National Guard is one of the four elements of the State of Washington's Washington Military Department and a component of the National Guard of the United States. It is headquartered at Camp Murray, Washington and is defined by ...

References

External links

* {{Shopping Centers WA Shopping malls in King County, Washington Buildings and structures in Bellevue, Washington Shopping malls established in 1946 1946 establishments in Washington (state)