`Re-Retailing' Of Seattle Predicted -- '94 May See Many Businesses Open Shop

Next year could be the beginning of a major renaissance for downtown Seattle.

Insiders say announcement of a big "entertainment retail" development between Sixth and Seventh avenues on Pike Street is only months away, and it may be just weeks until there's a deal that would bring new retail businesses to the Frederick & Nelson building, closed since May 1992.

Already, several large stores are scheduled to open downtown or expand operations in the retail core in 1994, including:

-- A five-fold expansion of the Gap clothing store on the southwest corner of Fourth Avenue and Pine Street into a 20,000-square-foot superstore.

-- The April opening of a 25,000-square-foot Borders Books and Music store in the Century Square Building on Fourth Avenue facing Westlake Park. Also opening in Century Square is a six-eatery food court that includes a Starbuck's coffee outlet.

-- Renovation of the landmark Coliseum Theater at Fifth Avenue and Pike Street into a 15,000-square-foot flagship store for Banana Republic, slated to open in November.

Though battered by the closure this year of the upscale I. Magnin and the scheduled Jan. 31, 1994, closure of the earthier Woolworth's dime store the downtown core did not stand still, says John Gilmore of the Downtown Seattle Association. A recent DSA inventory found 34 new stores have come into the retail core in the past 12 months, locating along First or Second avenues or on the

waterfront.

The key to the future of downtown, though, according to many commercial real-estate brokers and retail operators, is the Frederick's site, a prime location on Pine Street between Fifth and Sixth avenues. Retailers wishing to locate in downtown Seattle - and brokers say more than a dozen national operations are interested - are waiting to see who lands there.

"Until that situation's clarified, a whole lot of people (store owners) are not going to decide where or when to come," said Deputy Mayor Bob Watt, who's been encouraging negotiations between potential buyers and a corporation controlled by Frederick family heirs, who own the building.

The heirs earlier were said to be asking $35 million, though Watt said that figure has dropped.

Steven Wood, a real-estate consultant retained by the owners, said they are negotiating with several potential developers. "We're just in the real give-and-take state of this thing right now," he said.

Wood declined to name prospective buyers or to describe their proposals, though Watt says the negotiations are serious. A deal "is either going to happen or it's not in a short time frame," Watt said recently.

Under consideration is retail and commercial use of the building's nine floors. Watt said Mayor Norm Rice told Wood last summer that the city's use of the upper floors for the library's downtown branch was "not on the table" in view of the negotiations with retail developers.

The library would still like to move to the building's second through eighth floors, leaving the Metro tunnel level, the main floor and half of the second floor for a retail tenant, said Yale Lewis, president of the library's board.

"We think we could make a world-class library much less expensively (there) than other places," said Lewis. "Having said all that, if the city or the owners or the downtown people can fill it up with retail, more power to them," he added.

One possible scenario envisioned by Watt: Nordstrom moves into the Frederick's building. Then, the upscale toy store F.A.O. Schwarz moves into the old Nordstrom location, along with housewares retailer Crate & Barrel, a Barnes and Noble bookstore and Arnold Schwarzenegger's Planet Hollywood restaurant.

Nordstrom would consider such a move if it paid off financially, said Blake Nordstrom, the company's vice president for Washington and Alaska. "We always have been open to talking about it, but we're not developers and we just haven't been able to make it work."

Once a Frederick's deal is in place, another national department store is likely to be interested in the now-vacant I. Magnin site on the southeast corner of Sixth and Pine, suggested Watt.

"There's going to be a lot happening in '94, but I think it's going to be like dominos," said Steve Camp, vice president of Unico Properties, Inc., which manages Rainier Square and Two Union Square, among other buildings.

Camp said Rainier Square - where the Schwartz Bros. restaurant is slated for a remodel in 1994 - is a possible location for Barnes and Noble.

Regardless of what happens with the Frederick & Nelson building, TOLD Development Co., a Midwest firm specializing in retail developments, expects to announce plans within three or four months for a 75,000-square-foot project with parking for 240 cars between Sixth and Seventh avenues on Pike Street, according to Bob Cunningham, the company's vice president for development.

"I think you could call what we're planning entertainment retail," said Cunningham, who added that the development would likely have four to six tenants and offer something Seattle's downtown currently doesn't have.

"They (the tenants) want a `wow' factor when people walk into their stores," he said.

The site, which includes the whole block except for the I. Magnin building and the Roosevelt Hotel, is widely rumored to be the choice of Nike for a Seattle version of its radically designed approach to selling.

"The re-retailing of Seattle is going to happen over the next five years," predicted Cunningham, who also praised Rice's efforts to encourage retail developments.

"This is a great place to be and it's going to be an even better place to be," said Becky Freer, manager of Mario's, a men's and women's clothing store at 1513 Sixth Ave., referring to the changes she sees coming to downtown.