Bellevue Square plans to expand

Bellevue Square is expanding up, not out.

The regional mall's owner has filed preliminary paperwork with Bellevue city planners to add 119,000 square feet of retail space and 131,500 square feet of parking with 375 stalls.

The new construction would be on top of part of the existing two- to three-story shopping center and the four-story parking garage to the west, spanning the mall's West Drive.

The expansion would increase Bellevue Square's retail space by about 10 percent. It now has about 1.3 million square feet.

A spokeswoman for Kemper Development, the mall's owner, declined to discuss the expansion, or whether a tenant or tenants has been signed for it.

But Seattle retail consultants Richard Outcalt and Patricia Johnson speculated the space could be intended for a Saks Fifth Avenue, Bloomingdale's or Nordstrom Rack.

"It has to be one major destination retailer," Outcalt said.

In malls, "You can't get people to go up. People move horizontally," he said. Shoppers need a powerful incentive to climb to another level, he added, and a nationally known retailer would provide that.

A Saks or Bloomingdale's would be either chain's first store in the Seattle area, and Bellevue Square owner Kemper Freeman has said he'd like to land one of the upscale retailers.

The 119,000 square feet of proposed retail might not be enough for Bloomingdale's or Saks, Johnson said, but more could be provided by also leasing them the space directly below and creating a two-level store.

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Bellevue Square plans to expand