Retail Expansion Offers More Shopping And Fun

REDMOND

In Redmond there are two major categories of retailing: Redmond Town Center and Everything Else.

Don't write off Everything Else.

Although no other shopping center comes close to the size of fast-growing Town Center, there's one that, in its more modest way, has become a place to go for fun as well as shopping.

Bella Bottega, which opened in 1993 as little more than a grocery store and a few smaller shops, beat Town Center to the punch with the first movie theater in town. Now the shopping center just east of City Hall is expanding again, with new stores and restaurants opening this fall.

The Coho Cafe, in a new stand-alone building, began serving dinner last week and was to open for the lunch trade today. Founded by Arnies Restaurants owners Peter Challman and Robert Peterson, the Coho serves Northwest seafood with Latin and Asian touches.

In mid-November, Bartell Drug will open its second store with a drive-through pharmacy and one-hour photo processing. Other new tenants include a Midnight Sun tanning salon; Vitamin Life; and Hair Masters salon.

Next door to Act III Theatres, Games & Gizmos is about to roll out a prototype store for the shops that owners Terrace and Michelle Jerome hope to open nationwide. Catering primarily to teenagers, the store can accommodate 48 competitors in card-game tournaments and 16 players on networked computer games.

Briazz, a local chain of cafes featuring sandwiches, desserts, soups and salads, is in negotiations with the owners of Bella Bottega, but a lease has not been signed. Negotiations also are under way with other unidentified retailers.

When Bella Bottega opened with 68,000 square feet of retail space, its anchor was an Olson's Food Store (now QFC), with a Starbucks and Cinnabon bakery inside, and a Hollywood Video and Bella Cleaners beside it.

Expansion began when the Bella Bottega theaters opened in 1995 with seven screens. The multiplex was enlarged to 11 screens last spring. The theaters and this fall's expansion will add 100,000 square feet to the shopping center.

The neighborhood surrounding Bella Bottega is changing rapidly, with high-density housing being built to the north and the south.

The residential growth - and the incomes of the new residents - would delight almost any retailer. Intracorp has sold most of the 400 condominiums in its Rivertrail project, for prices ranging from just above $200,000 to $330,000. Trammel Crow in August opened the first part of its 272-unit Avignon development, where apartments rent for $1,400 to $1,900 per month. Trammel Crow also is building the five-story, 124-apartment Redmond Midrise.

Some businesses, such as QFC and Act III Theatres, draw their customers from such a large area that the new condos and apartments won't have a profound effect on business. The smaller shops and restaurants depend more on trade from the new residents - as evidenced by locals knocking on the door of the Coho Cafe to find out when it would open - said Maria Royer, the Terranomics Retail Services broker who is listing the shopping center's retail space.

The growing shopping center has, in turn, been a strong selling point for the nearby housing, say agents for the developers. Chris Perkins-Lurie, a sales associate at Rivertrail, said she and her husband have bought a condo in the project largely because of the nearby shopping. "We've lived in areas where you could walk to everything, and we really, really liked that," Perkins-Lurie said.

Bella Bottega is owned by Gary Merlino, who also owns Gary Merlino Construction and Stoneway Concrete. That's why the parking lots are paved with concrete instead of asphalt.

Retail Extra

There won't be a Bob's Crab Cooker at the Bellevue Galleria after all. But there will be a Bob's Rambunctious Seafood Joint. Owners Gerry Kingen, founder and co-owner of the Red Robin chain, and Scott Switzer, who operates Salty's restaurants with Kingen, changed the name after a trademark search turned up Bob's Crab Cookers and Bob's Crab Crackers in other states. Their restaurant is named after Kingen's late father, Bob Kingen, who operated restaurants in Bellevue and Renton.

Six Degrees, a spinoff of the eclectic neighborhood restaurant of the same name in Seattle's Green Lake neighborhood, has opened on Park Lane in downtown Kirkland.

All of the former Bruegger's Bagels shops have been converted to Zi Pani cafes that feature fresh-baked breads, pastries and scones, along with bagels. Redmond-based owner Jay Wagnon revamped 19 stores in the Seattle area and 22 in the Baltimore-Washington, D.C., area. Keith Ervin's phone message number is 206-515-5632. His e-mail address is: kervin@seattletimes.com Shop Talk appears the second and fourth Tuesdays of each month.

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Retail expansion.

Bella Bottega's new tenants and estimated time of opening:

Coho Cafe, open now.

Games & Gizmos, next month.

Bartell Drug, mid-November.

Hair Masters, next week.

Vitamin Life, early December.

Midnight Sun, early December.