But Bellevue is hardly Detroit and The Bravern is not yet dead, having just recently signed a new tenant: Seattle-based clothier David Lawrence, which sells labels like Versace. Diana Blackham, the store's vice president, says The Bravern has maintained the luxurious ambience that convinced her company to open there and abandon its downtown Seattle and Bellevue Square stores. "Thieves [in Seattle] are becoming very bold," Blackham says, adding that outside their midtown doors, there was "a lot of panhandling...a lot of urinating and defecation on our building."
The Bravern was willing to come down in price to draw in David Lawrence, says Blackham, though she won't say by how much. It's still an expensive location, she insists, though The Bravern store is smaller than its Seattle forerunner. Blackham concedes the new store gets less foot traffic than the Seattle location did. But thanks to the higher incomes on the Eastside, those who do come in spend more on their purchases, she says. And according to Hussey, Neiman Marcus is also doing well at The Bravern, though he declines to provide specific sales figures.
Kevin Casey
The middling Bravern has thus far proven that Eastsiders are uncomfortable with flaunting wealth.
Kevin Casey
A familiar sight: would-be customers walking by, rather than into, Jimmy Choo.
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With millions of dollars already sunk into The Bravern, Woodworth says pulling the plug is unthinkable. "This is a freight train, and you don't try to stop a freight train," he explains.
Ivanoff won't say how much money his company has wrapped up in The Bravern, but Schnitzer is on the hook for a $684 million construction loan from a Houston-based lender. And London-based private-equity firm Investcorp put $800 million of its own money into the project in 2007, thus spreading out the risk. With several hundred square feet abandoned by the Artisanal restaurants to fill, Woodworth says Schnitzer is looking for something in entertainment, possibly another restaurant or a nightclub. One thing's for sure, though: The company plans to stick with high-end luxury.
Despite Ivanoff's insistence that The Bravern has been more successful than its shaky start suggests, it's also not the sort of project Schnitzer plans to attempt again on the Eastside. Nor does he expect anyone else to. "You're not going to see this stuff built again," he predicts.
No bank would take the risk of financing such a development, Ivanoff adds. And while he remains confident in the potential success of The Bravern's stores, the Eastside just doesn't have the market to support any more of them.
"There's not enough demand to justify new development," he says. "I don't think you'll see that magnitude [of development] for a good chunk of time."
lonstot@seattleweekly.com
