F.A.O. Schwarz Toys With Downtown Site -- Bellevue Store Readies To Open At End Of Month

F.A.O. Schwarz, the high-end toy store willing to sell just about anything for a price, still hopes to get part of Frederick & Nelson's old space in downtown Seattle.

It wants part of the old store - preferably the first floor and its "Santa Claus" window, where F&N welcomed children for decades before its bankruptcy and final closure last year.

And it wants it soon.

"We have it in our budget to do three flagship stores between 1994 and 1996," said John Eyler, the Seattle-born president of Schwarz. Flagship stores are the company's largest.

Seattle is high on the list of possible sites across the country, some of which are in final negotiations, he said.

Seattle is the only "traditional" city on Schwarz's list. Also under consideration are Las Vegas and Orlando, Fla., where sales would hinge largely on tourist dollars.

"Starting in 1994, we would build one a year for the next three years," Eyler said.

Problems facing Schwarz, however, remain formidable. No developer has been found for the huge F&N property, a site known to be a potential earthquake hazard.

The latest suggestion for the site - a new home for the Seattle Public Library - has been mired in disputes over the value of the building.

Meanwhile, a few other major downtown retailers nearby have closed their doors, spurring talk about the decline of the central retail core.

Eyler said the tony toy retailer is "waiting to understand what the disposition of the property will be."

The New York-based retailer is gearing up to open its first Seattle-area store in Bellevue Square on July 31. The new Eastside outlet represents the company's first foray into midsized stores.

But it wants action quickly on the downtown F&N property - even more than it wants room in Westlake Center. ". . . Our preference is across the street" at F&N, Eyler said.

Schwarz would build a huge toy department store in the old F&N site. At 25,000 square feet, it would be the company's fifth flagship store.

However, it would be only a small part of the building, on Pine Street between Fifth and Sixth avenues. Schwarz would take less than a third of the first two floors, which have a total of 96,000 square feet.

The store would be smaller than Schwarz's biggest, 40,000-square-foot store in New York and its newest, 30,000-square-foot store in Chicago. But it would incorporate many of Schwarz's marketing innovations, such as trees that talk via interactive tape recordings, and a life-size pterodactyl that flies 36 feet across much of the store into a rain forest with talking lions.

Eyler would not discourage talk of a library in the F&N building, but he said retail on the first two floors of the building would do more to encourage the "critical mass" of downtown stores needed to preserve Seattle's retail core.

Meanwhile, the company is about to start stocking its shelves in Bellevue. The 11,000-square-foot outlet in Bellevue Square will be the first of Schwarz's "miniflagship" stores, about a third the size of its four flagships.

The company expects to build 16 more of the "miniflagships" across the U.S. over the next three years. But it has no immediate plans in the Seattle area for anything except Bellevue and, perhaps, the old Frederick & Nelson property.