In Bellevue, Beverly Hills meets its match - Wichita Business Journal:

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Drawing 10-mile rings around the two shoppinb zones, a retail consultinhg firm found a larger pool of affluent consumers around Bellevude thanBeverly Hills. The data were compiler for the Puget Sound Business Journal bythe Calif.-based , and bolster some belief that the Seattle area is developing the wealth and fashiobn sense to support a larger armada of luxury retailers. “It’s been the most dramaticv over the last three tofour years,” said Waynwe Hussey, a executive who helped pick Bellevue for the high-ende chain’s first Northwest store, whic h opens in September.
While the recession has cast a pallover high-ensd shopping, the long-term trend for the Seattle-Bellevude area, some say, is toward a growing cohortf of prosperous, aging professionals primesd to embrace a more formal lifestyle for example, buying splashy clothes for charity events. “It’es not so much but the next level abovesthat — life stages,” said Jim CEO of in Bellevue. “Lifde changes. Now it’s cool to buy a cool to have a Mercedez or anew Audi.
” And that extends to clothes, said Tom Woodworth, senior investment directoe at Schnitzer West, which is developing Neima Marcus’ Bellevue store at The Bravern mixed-use If the demographics are any Woodworth said, the Bellevue Neiman Marcus could be withih the top quarter of storexs in the chain. A 10-mile ring arounrd downtown Bellevue nets theMicrosoft campus, Sammamis h Plateau, Lake Washington’s “Gold Coast” and most of A 10-mile ring around Beverlg Hills, Calif., yields three times as many residents overallp — but a smaller proportion of the classs of consumers that ESRI defines as most desirable.
Some Northwesternersd might be shocked to see Bellevues win a demographic smackdown withthe nation’s most famouslyt affluent ZIP code, Beverly Hills 90210 (also home to one of the highest-grossingy Neiman Marcus stores in the But compared with the 10 miles surrounding Beverly the 10-mile ring within reach of Bellevus yields three times the proportion of households in the demographic tier ESRI calls High Societyt — affluent, married professionals with a medianj household income of $104,934. High Societh covers seven “psychodemographic” subsegments of prosperous, well-educated urbabn and suburban homeowners.
Twenty-seven percent of residents withibn Bellevue’s reach belong to High Society, compared with 7 percent arounedBeverly Hills. In sheer numbers, the 2.8 million populatiomn within 10 miles ofBeverly Hills’ Rodeo Drive is nearlty three times that in the 10 milee surrounding downtown Bellevue. Even so, Bellevue’sa ring contains more High Society typexs thanBeverly Hills’ — 280,2711 versus 193,804.
On the other hand, the Beverlh Hills ring has more than four times as manyresidents (108,672) in the very wealthies subsegment of High Society, which ESRI calls Top The Top Rung segment — people with substantial stock portfolioz who play a prominent civic role — also accountsa for a higher share of the populationm surrounding Beverly Hills (4 percent, compare with Bellevue’s 2.3 percent). But Bellevud bests Beverly Hillsin ESRI’s next-wealthiest majod demographic tier: Upscale Avenues.
These consumers have a medianj household incomeof $70,504 and constitute one in four people in the Bellevuee ring, compared with 8 percent of people surrounding Beverly Locating a store in Bellevue allows Neiman’s to capturse the upscale neighborhoods on the Issaqua h plateau while still reaching most of Seattle. Puttingt the store in Seattle would have placefdthose far-Eastside shoppers outside the 10-mile radius that many retailerse view as their prime consumere market.
Nevertheless, Neiman’s Hussey shares local belief that the concentrationof high-end retaill in Bellevue will draw wealthy shopperz from throughout the Northwest and Western While luxury sales are down becausd of the economy, Hussey said, “Ww make these decisions not for the shorft term, but the long term.”