Main Street Place Development To Displace Downtown Bellevue Retailers

There's a post today on the Downtown Bellevue Network site about how PetSmart is closing on Feb 2nd to make way for the Main Street Place development that was announced for the site at Main and 108th in 2021. This same development will also impact HMart, Office Depot, Blazing Bagels and the long closed Toy R Us space. What I'm interested to see is whether the four viable retailers at that location are able to find other retail space in or near downtown Bellevue. It seems to me that there is lots of unoccupied retail inventory in the lower levels the many the new developments that have come online in the last couple of years, but most of those spaces present challenges in terms of easy access parking. This is particularly true for stores like HMart and PetSmart where consumers often need a cart to car option. It'd be shame to lose these retailers in the downtown core, but also a missed opportunity to make use of existing inventory. There seems to be a misalignment in downtown Bellevue between the supply being made available in new developments to retailers/restaurants and the demand. I plan to cover this topic more comprehensively in a future post.

Downtown Bellevue PetSmart to Close February 2

News Digest 1/23/2025

Interesting post on The Interurban Canopy blog about the City of Bothell donating a large parcel of land in the heart of the active development area of downtown west of Bothell Way, between Pop Keeney Stadium and the King County Library, to Bothell United Methodist Church. The church will work with BRIDGE Housing to build “hundreds of affordable rental units” in addition to public spaces and some food/beverage retail, which will contribute to goals outlined Bothell’s new Comprehensive Plan that call for ~10K affordable housing units over the next two decades.

Bothell donates downtown vacant lot for affordable housing

An article from the Seattle Times Traffic Lab project highlights Sound Transit's CEO declaring "the existence of an Emergency" (not quite a "State of Emergency", which I presume has particular consequences) seeking urgent no bid engineering work for $1.5M to address issues causing delays in the Light Rail system. This appears to be a stopgap before an forthcoming ask for substantially more resources to address a myriad of identified issues across the system... including one with a software issue at the Spring Street station on the brand new 2 Line in Bellevue.

Light rail breakdowns lead Sound Transit to seek urgent repairs (paywall)