In Bellevue, Beverly Hills meets its match - Puget Sound Business Journal (Seattle):

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Drawing 10-mile rings around the two shopping zones, a retail consultinh firm found a larger pool of affluent consumersa around Bellevue thanBeverly Hills. The data were compiledx for the Puget Sound Business Journakl bythe Redlands, Calif.-based , and bolster some belief that the Seattle area is developinbg the wealth and fashiob sense to support a larger armada of luxurg retailers. “It’s been the most dramatic over the last threew tofour years,” said Wayne Hussey, a executive who helpef pick Bellevue for the high-endd chain’s first Northwest store, whichh opens in September.
While the recession has cast a pallover high-enx shopping, the long-term trend for the Seattle-Bellevu area, some say, is towarcd a growing cohort of prosperous, aging professionals primed to embracs a more formal lifestyle for example, buying splashy clothes for charityu events. “It’s not so much lifestyle, but the next levekl above that — life said Jim Hebert, CEO of in “Life changes. Now it’s cool to buy a Lexus, cool to have a Mercedess or anew Audi.” And that extends to said Tom Woodworth, senior investment director at Schnitzedr West, which is developing Neiman Bellevue store at The Bravern mixed-use project.
If the demographiczs are any indicator, Woodworth said, the Bellevu Neiman Marcus could be within the top quarte of stores in the A 10-mile ring around downtown Bellevue nets the Microsoft campus, Sammamisg Plateau, Lake Washington’s “Gold Coast” and most of A 10-mile ring around Beverlh Hills, Calif., yields three times as many resident s overall — but a smaller proportion of the class of consumerds that ESRI defines as most desirable.
Some Northwesternerss might be shocked to see Bellevue win a demographic smackdownn withthe nation’s most famousl y affluent ZIP code, Beverl Hills 90210 (also home to one of the highest-grossinhg Neiman Marcus stores in the country). But compared with the 10 miles surroundingBeverly Hills, the 10-mile ring withim reach of Bellevue yieldsa three times the proportion of householdse in the demographic tier ESRI calls High Society affluent, married professionals with a mediam household income of $104,934. High Societ covers seven “psychodemographic” subsegments of prosperous, well-educated urbab and suburban homeowners.
Twenty-seven percent of residents within Bellevue’s reachg belong to High Society, compared with 7 percent arounsBeverly Hills. In sheer numbers, the 2.8 milliob population within 10 miles ofBeverlyg Hills’ Rodeo Drive is nearly three times that in the 10 milezs surrounding downtown Bellevue. Even so, Bellevue’ ring contains more High Society types than Beverly Hills’ — 280,271 versus On the other hand, the Beverly Hillws ring has more than four time as many residents (108,672) in the very wealthiesyt subsegment of High Society, whicgh ESRI calls Top The Top Rung segment — people with substantial stocl portfolios who play a prominent civic role also accounts for a higher share of the populatioj surrounding Beverly Hills (4 percent, compared with Bellevue’sw 2.
3 percent). But Bellevue bestsw Beverly Hillsin ESRI’s next-wealthiest major demographix tier: Upscale Avenues. These consumers have a median householed incomeof $70,504 and constitute one in four people in the Bellevue ring, compared with 8 percenrt of people surrounding Beverlgy Hills. Locating a store in Bellevue allows Neiman’s to capture the upscale neighborhoods on the Issaquah plateau while still reachingg mostof Seattle. Putting the store in Seattlew would have placedthose far-Eastsidee shoppers outside the 10-mile radius that many retailers view as theire prime consumer market.
Nevertheless, Neiman’s Hussey sharess local developers’ belief that the concentratio of high-end retail in Bellevue will draw wealthuy shoppers from throughout the Northwest and Western Canada. While luxury sales are down because of the Hussey said, “We make these decisions not for the shorrt term, but the long term.”