Northern Exposure -- Tenants Depart Northgate; Managers Change The Mix

Seattle residents preserved shopping history by protecting Pioneer Square and the Pike Place Market.

Is it time to worry about Northgate, a pioneer among the nation's shopping malls?

Tenants are disappearing.

Gone are Klopfensteins, Burgermaster, Combinations, the Dragon Cafe, The Wild Pair, The Squire Shop, The House Dressing and others; some departed because of corporate bankruptcies, poor sales or other reasons. In their spaces are papered-over windows, empty displays or blank walls.

J.K. Gill has moved to a smaller location in the mall, leaving a vacant spot. Seafirst has moved to a bigger spot, leaving another empty space.

Ten of some 110 spaces are vacant, nearly all in conspicuous locations. By industry standards, the mall is overdue for a remodel.

By contrast, Bellevue Square has just completed a $120 million renovation and expansion. Southcenter opened a $6 million wing for Mervyn's and other new tenants last November and is getting a new Sears. Both have found replacements for vacated Frederick & Nelson stores.

Retailing is a brutal business these days. Nationwide, sales are slumping while discount malls and big-volume merchants such as Costco and Wal-Mart gain market share. One casualty: Aurora Village, which lost major tenants and whose site is being redeveloped.

Northgate's owner and manager, the Edward J. DeBartolo Corp., says all is well despite the vacancies.

"The mall is not in a slump - quite the contrary," said Joe Grevstad, DeBartolo's leasing manager for this area.

Marie Cartwright, a spokeswoman at DeBartolo's headquarters in Youngstown, Ohio, said the turnover is routine, and that Northgate is making room for a group of new tenants as part of a plan for a new merchandising mix.

She said Northgate has signed leases with six new tenants and is negotiating to fill the other four spaces. She would not identify the tenants pending an announcement.

Bob Jensen, who owned the Northgate Burgermaster, said he had been shown plans by management for an expansion of the mall, including a Sears and a new, larger Nordstrom connected to the mall with a breezeway of new shops.

But Cartwright says there are no plans for a major remodel or expansion, and a spokeswoman for Nordstrom said the retailer has no plans.

Jensen, who still owns the Lynnwood Burgermaster, said he tried for two years to get a new lease but could not get mall management to discuss specifics. After 10 years at Northgate, he decided to close the restaurant.

During its last year, the Northgate Burgermaster was losing money, which Jensen blamed on a proliferation of snack bars and restaurants brought in by DeBartolo.

Some have suggested high rents are a problem, but if Northgate is able to bring in new tenants willing to pay top dollar, it's an indication that the mall remains a highly desirable place to have a shop. Officials would not say what rents are being charge.

Retailers say business is good

Despite the vacancies, The Bon Marche and several other retailers say business is good.

"We hate to see a mall have any vacancies but we hate to see a mall have just any tenants," said John Buller, senior vice president for marketing with The Bon. The Bon was a founding tenant in 1950 when Northgate opened in what then was a suburb of Seattle.

Ben Bridge Jewelers is completely renovating its Northgate store.

"For us, business has been very good," said George Kemnitz, Northgate store manager for Ben Bridge. His store is getting its first remodel in 10 years.

Kemnitz says DeBartolo has improved Northgate since it took over in 1987 from Campeau Corp. of Toronto.

"Stores are looking a lot sharper. They're getting rid of some deadwood and bringing in new stores."

According to Scarborough Research Corp., a national research agency, Northgate remains one of the region's most popular malls. Thirty-two percent of adults in the greater Seattle area shopped at Northgate within the past 90 days, compared with 34 percent for Southcenter and 30 percent for Bellevue Square. Northgate is 1.2 million square feet, compared with Southcenter's 1.6 million square feet and Bellevue Square's 1 million square feet.

But visitors are one thing. Spenders are another.

"It's always been a good mall," said Nancy Prevele, an owner of the Buddy Squirrel Nut Shop, a tenant since Northgate's opening day.

"Business is down everywhere. People are not spending as much as they were three years ago."

Facelift would be welcome

Whatever the case, many tenants say a facelift at the mall would be welcome.

"This mall has been looking like a 1970 mall for years," said the manager of one store.

That much seems true. Although many tenants have freshened their stores, Northgate's long corridor, with telephone stands trimmed in orange carpeting and kiosks selling knickknacks, has a dated look. Malls typically are completely renovated every seven years and given minor improvements every three years.

The last major remodel at Northgate was in 1974, when a roof was put over the mall.

Kansas City's Country Club, built in the mid-1920s, was the first shopping district built around a unified architecture, but Northgate took the concept further as the first to be anchored by a full-line department store and warmed by a central plant. Service trucks used a road that ran under the mall.

When Northgate opened, a large totem pole beckoned shoppers determined to make the long drive from city neighborhoods in the days before Interstate 5. The pole still stands, but not many women shoppers are seen wearing white gloves, as they did then.

The Northgate concept was quickly copied and revised throughout the nation, fueled by an expanding postwar economy. Today there are 1,800 enclosed malls, 5.5 square feet of mall space, for every person in the U.S., according to the International Council of Shopping Centers.