In with the New: A Tour of the New Downtown Bellevue Safeway

As discussed previously, last Thursday marked the end of the 45-year run of the old Marina-style Safeway in downtown Bellevue.  Although a largely intact 1960s supermarket may invoke nostalgic longings for days long gone, it was clear that this store was outdated, and that even if it were not being replaced it would have fallen victim to the rapid growth and development of downtown Bellevue sooner or later.

In its place, a brand new Safeway store has now opened a block to the South in the new Avalon Meydenbauer development found near Bellevue Square   Even though there are currently only three Safeway stores operating within the Bellevue City limits (this one, a store located at Factoria Mall and one in the Overlake neighborhood,) Safeway has long been tied to the Eastside, having maintained a distribution center since 1958in the Overlake area, along with an industrial bakery and soda bottling plant.  In keeping with the increasingly urban character of Bellevue. this new store has become Safeway’s new flagship store for the Pacific Northwest, and provides an interesting snapshot that shows a number of ongoing trends in supermarket design as Safeway moves upscale in many of its local stores to keep up with high-end competition from stores such as QFC and Whole Foods Market.  In addition to this, this store ups the ante by adding several new features that you’re not likely to find in your local store anytime soon.

After the jump, a tour of Bellevue’s new Safeway store.

All This, and Strawberries Too: The Bellevue Strawberry Festival

Although you wouldn’t know it by looking at the place today, for much of its history Bellevue has been a predominantly agricultural community.  Strawberries have played an especially prominent role in the growth and development of the city, and at one time before World War 2, there were more than 200 acres of strawberry fields within the present Bellevue city limits.  Because of this, in 1925 a number of civic and business leaders in the community organized the first Strawberry Festival in Bellevue, an event which attracted thousands of visitors, and would continue to grow for years, until World War 2 caused the cancellation of the Strawberry Festival in 1942, as many of the Japanese farmers who grew strawberries in Bellevue were sent to internment camps in California for the duration of the conflict.  For more information of the history of the Strawberry Festival in Bellevue, you can go to this page, and over at HistoryLink there is an essay written in 1934 by a college student describing memories of one of the earliest festivals.

 After the war, it would take more than forty years before the Strawberry Festival was revived; first as a one-night event hosted by the Bellevue Historical Society in 1987, then as a full-scale civic festival by the Eastside Heritage Center in 2003.  This year’s festival was held over the past weekend at Crossroads Park, providing a glance into the history of Bellevue in days now long forgotten, as well as a look at the Bellevue of today.  After the jump you will find some of the highlights of my visit to the Strawberry Festival.

The Beginning and the End of the Old Bellevue Safeway

Over at Vintage Seattle yesterday, I found out that after more than 45 years of continuous operation, the old Marina style Safeway across from Bellevue Square will be closing its doors for the last time tomorrow as Safeway’s new 55,000 square foot flagship store for the Pacific Northwest (more than double the size of this one) prepares to open a block to the south on Friday.  This particular store’s days have been numbered for some time now, and it has already lasted a year longer than it was intended to, as the new Safeway was originally intended to open a year ago.  For the time being, the Bartell Drugs next door will remain open, but this land is now owned by Kemper Freeman, and the chances are good that it will soon become the site of another mixed-use development similar to the nearby Lincoln Square.  As one of the shrinking number of relics from the Bellevue of old, I went to take one last look at this store before it closes for good, and I was also able to find some information from back when it opened.  After the jump, a few photos of the interior of the store, and some background on its history.

Pick a Lane, Any Lane

With the seemingly perpetual construction projects on I-405 through Bellevue these days, it’s not surprising that people might have some trouble finding their way around.  Right now, the construction seems to be focused primarily on the I-90 interchange, where a new bridge is being built to handle more southbound traffic. This interchange  has always been something of a spaghetti junction in its current form (that link goes to an interactive map,) and the proposed master plan for this interchange looks suspiciously like it might make an even bigger mess out of this place than it already is.  Figuring out what lane you were supposed to be in to get to whatever destination you were headed for was enough of a challenge before all this construction started, and with stuff being constantly rearranged these days, it looks like even the sign people aren’t sure which lane goes where:

As far as I can tell, the arrows on this sign are pretty much just pointing off in random directions.  It seems that you’re just supposed to pick a lane, stick with it, and hope that you don’t accidentally end up in downtown Enumclaw for some unknown reason. 

A Tour of Crossroads Bellevue - Part 1: The Mall

Note:  This is the third in an ongoing series of posts profiling the shopping malls found in the Seattle area.  The previous posts in this series can be found below:

• Totem Lake Mall
• Factoria Mall

For those of you out there who have been wondering when I would get around to actually finishing up my profile of Crossroads in Bellevue, rest assured that I have actually been working on this for some time now.  The main reason that I have delayed this is that I have not been able to settle on an appropriate format for this.  Crossroads is a very different place from the two malls that I have previously profiled on the site, and just taking a few photos and putting them up with some comments (as I have done previously) would not do the place justice.  Because of this, I have decided that a better approach would be to split this up into four parts, since there is a lot of material to cover here.  Tentatively, this is how I plan to do this:

• Part 1: The Mall (this post)
• Part 2: The Stores and the Restaurants
• Part 3: What’s the Secret?  (What is it that has allowed Crossroads to succeed where other malls have failed?)
• Part 4:  A History of Crossroads (I haven’t been able to find a whole lot of info on this yet; any help that could be provided would be appreciated here.)

In many ways, the story of Crossroads Mall is similar to that of the Totem Lake and Factoria Malls.  All three are relatively small malls designed for a similar mix of stores (although Crossroads is about a decade older than Totem Lake and fifteen years older than Factoria,) and all have faced similar challenges.  There is one major difference that distinguishes Crossroads though:  Where other similar malls in the area have foundered and failed, Crossroads has thrived, witha low vacancy rate and a strong base of shoppers.  This has not always been the case though.  When the current ownership took over the Crossroads Mall in 1985, it was largely vacant and considered to be a failed shopping center.  Since that time, a unique approach to retail has evolved Crossroads into something that is less of a conventional shopping mall and more of a gathering place for the community that just happens to be located in a mall, with a unique mix of tenants you won’t find anywhere else.  If you’re looking for designer label fashions, high-end housewares and four-star cuisine, Crossroads isn’t the place to look.  On the other hand if you’re looking for unique yet affordable food, stuff to do and a place to spend a Friday evening without breaking the bank, Crossroads is the place to go on the Eastside.  In this series of posts we will take a look at Crossroads, and what has made it a success where other malls have failed.  After the jump, a tour of the Crossroads Mall property. 

(Please note that this post contains a lot of pictures, and it may take some time to load if you are on a slower Internet connection.)

Taqueria Guadalajara - Your Friendly Neighborhood Taco Truck

In honor of Cinco de Mayo, I decided that today would be a good day to pay a visit to the friendly neighborhood taco truck for lunch.  It seems that I wasn’t the only one, as the nice weather helped to draw a pretty good crowd to the place for lunch today.

Taqueria Guadalajara has been around the neighborhood in one spot or another for a number of years now (it tends to move on a semi-regular basis,) and serves up some tasty food for pretty reasonable prices, even if the truck does look a bit rough around the edges these days.  Currently, it resides in the parking lot of the Overlake 76 gas station at the corner of 148th and Northeast 24th (which would actually put it just barely within the Bellevue city limits, but most people around here still seem to refer to it as the Redmond taco truck.) 

My usual order is one of their burritos with either chicken (pictured above) or Carne Asada, a steal at $4.50 (tax included.)  At most of the other places in the neighborhood that serve burritos like this you’d be hard pressed to get out the door for much less than seven bucks, and this one is quite a bit tastier than most of those.  The tacos here are pretty good too, although they aren’t anything like what you’d expect a taco to be if you’ve been raised on Taco Bell and other gringo fast food.  Either way, Taqueria Guadalajara is a nice spot to grab a quick bite to eat in the Overlake neighborhood as long as you can actually find it (if it moves, I’ll be sure to update this post to keep up with it.)

Forgot something?

“We’d like to welcome everyone out to the first 2008 meeting for the Bellevue Friends of the Library.  As you know, 2007 was a great year for our organization, and for the Bellevue Library, but in spite of all we accomplished, I can’t help but get the sneaking suspicion that we all forgot something important last year.  I just can’t quite seem to figure out what it was.  Anyone have any suggestions?  Anyone?”

Incidentally, the reason I was at the library was to dig through the microfilm archives, where I was able to locate a number of newspaper articles and advertisements related to the opening of the Totem Lake Mall (which actually turns out to have been called the Totem Lake Center at the time, and heavily themed to match the name) in 1973.  Watch for this stuff to get posted soon..

Malls of the Seattle Area: A Tour of the Factoria Mall

Update 1/24/2008:  Since this post was made, a number of stores in the mall have closed down after the mall management did not renew their leases.  See the following post for details: Factoria Mall Just Keeps Getting Emptier

NOTE: This is the second in a series of posts that wll eventually profile most of the major malls in the greater Seattle area.  For those of you who might have missed it, the first post in this series covering the Totem Lake Mall in Kirkland can be found here.

In some ways, the Factoria Mall is quite smilar to the Totem Lake Mall, which was profiled previously on this Blog.  Both were built around the same time, and are relatively small in comparison to most of the other malls in the area.  Both are located in neighborhoods that became increasingly affluent with the rise of the technology industry in the area.  In spite of this, these malls have failed to keep up with the times.  In the case of the Totem Lake Mall, the loss of major tenants has left only a handful of stores operating in the lower part of the mall, and the enclosed mall portion all but abandoned.  The Factoria Mall has also faced the loss of major tenants, with their Gottschalk’s store (another former Lamonts) closing in 2005, and the Mervyn’s closing shortly afterward when the company left the Pacific Northwest.  On the other hand, the Factoria Mall still has a number of major tenants, and has managed to retain a critical mass of customers to keep it viable, if not thriving.  Also like the Totem Lake Mall, there are plans in the works for a major overhaul, although from the plans posted in the mall it would appear to be far less drastic than that planned for Totem Lake.  After the jump, a tour of the Factoria Mall as it stands today.

Marooned in Bellevue

Today my car is at the dealer getting a couple of minor issues looked at. Rather than sit around at home all day, I decided to get dropped off in downtown Bellevue so I could wander around for a while. It turns out I can blog from my PPC, although the functionality is limited (and this keyboard is a bit of a pain to do too much typing on.) It appears I will have some time on my hands today, so I’ll post if I see anything interesting.