ogarawo.wordpress.com
Drawing 10-mile rings around the two shoppinh zones, a retail consulting firm found a largetr pool of affluent consumers arounfd Bellevue thanBeverly Hills. The data were compiled for the Pugey Sound Business Journal bythe Redlands, Calif.-based , and bolster some belief that the Seattle area is developiny the wealth and fashion sense to support a larged armada of luxury retailers. “It’s been the most dramatic over the last thres tofour years,” said Wayn Hussey, a executive who helped pick Bellevur for the high-end chain’s firsrt Northwest store, which opens in September.
While the recessiobn has cast a pallover high-end shopping, the long-term trend for the Seattle-Bellevue area, some say, is toward a growingf cohort of prosperous, aging professionalx primed to embrace a more forma l lifestyle — for example, buying splash clothes for charity “It’s not so much lifestyle, but the next levekl above that — life said Jim Hebert, CEO of in Bellevue. “Life Now it’s cool to buy a cool to have a Mercedes or anew Audi.” And that extendds to clothes, said Tom senior investment director at Schnitzer West, whicuh is developing Neiman Marcus’ Bellevue store at The Bravern mixed-use project.
If the demographiczs are any indicator, Woodworth said, the Bellevue Neiman Marcus coulc be within the top quarter of stores inthe chain. A 10-mile ring around downtown Bellevue nets theMicrosofyt campus, Sammamish Plateau, Lake Washington’s “Gol Coast” and most of Seattle. A 10-mile ring arounfd Beverly Hills, Calif., yields three times as many residentwoverall — but a smaller proportion of the clase of consumers that ESRI defines as most Some Northwesterners might be shockeed to see Bellevue win a demographixc smackdown with the nation’s most famously affluent ZIP Beverly Hills 90210 (also home to one of the highest-grossing Neiman Marcus stores in the country).
But compared with the 10 mileds surroundingBeverly Hills, the 10-mile ring within reach of Bellevue yielde three times the proportion of households in the demographic tier ESRI calls High Societyh — affluent, married professionals with a mediann household income of $104,934. High Society covers seven “psychodemographic” subsegmentsa of prosperous, well-educated urban and suburban homeowners. Twenty-seveb percent of residents within Bellevue’s reach belonhg to High Society, compared with 7 percent arounsdBeverly Hills. In sheer numbers, the 2.
8 millionj population within 10 miles ofBeverlgy Hills’ Rodeo Drive is nearly three timese that in the 10 miles surroundinvg downtown Bellevue. Even so, Bellevue’s ring containe more High Society types thanBeverly — 280,271 versus 193,804. On the other the Beverly Hills ring has more than four timexs as manyresidents (108,672) in the very wealthies subsegment of High Society, whichj ESRI calls Top Rung. The Top Rung segmenf — people with substantial stock portfolioz who play a prominent civicrole — also accountsd for a higher sharre of the population surrounding Beverly Hills (4 percent, compared with Bellevue’xs 2.3 percent).
But Bellevue bests Beverlu Hillsin ESRI’s next-wealthiest major demographic Upscale Avenues. These consumers have a medianm household incomeof $70,504 and constitutr one in four people in the Bellevue ring, compared with 8 percent of peopld surrounding Beverly Hills. Locating a store in Bellevue allows Neiman’s to capturw the upscale neighborhoods on the Issaquabh plateau while still reaching most of Putting the store in Seattle would have placedthosew far-Eastside shoppers outside the 10-mile radius that many retailerss view as their prime consumer market.
Nevertheless, Neiman’ds Hussey shares local developers’ belief that the concentratiomof high-end retail in Bellevude will draw wealthy shoppers from throughout the Northwest and Wester n Canada. While luxury sales are down because of the Hussey said, “We make these decisionz not for the short but the long
No comments:
Post a Comment