September 1, 2026

Kemper puts Bellevue Collection on the block

Photo via Colliers [enlarge]

What began as a humble open-air mall is now is now a premium shopping and dining destination.

In an unexpected announcement last Friday, Kemper Development Co. said it's planning to sell the Bellevue Collection.

A broker hasn't yet been chosen, the company said in its press release. The news has now been widely reported.

The release reads in part, “KDC plans to select a broker shortly to begin the sale exploration process. The Bellevue Collection will continue to operate normally. Community events and cultural programming, including Snowflake Lane, will continue as planned through 2026.”

Kemper Freeman Jr. wasn't quoted in the release. He's now about 85 years old. The company says he retired last year, which hadn't been previously disclosed. Grandfather Miller Freeman and father Kemper Freeman Sr. amassed the land — then mostly strawberry fields — during the World War II years.

KDC today is a fifth-generation, family-owned company, with management now including Freeman's two daughters, sons-in-law and at least one grandchild. It began as a 10-acre open-air mall with 16 stores. That debuted in 1946, six years after the first floating bridge connected to Seattle, and has been expanding ever since. It now spans about 50 acres.

Image via Kemper Development [enlarge]

A map of the Bellevue Collection, circa 2017.

What old-timers still call Bellevue Square has grown over the decades to include three office towers, 1,100 hotel rooms (under three brands), some 360 luxury apartments and more. The Bellevue Collection now totals about 5.5 million square feet. On both sides of Bellevue Way, and north of Eighth, there are over 200 retailers and restaurants, plus two multiplex cinemas. KDC says the complex has 12,500 free retail parking spaces. (The newer east side of the complex, aka Lincoln Square, has underground parking.)

What began with humble tenants including the Kandy Kane and Crabapple restaurants, the 550-seat Bel-Vue Theatre and (later) Frederick & Nelson, is now reliably packed with affluent shoppers and diners. Once catering to suburbanites who commuted to their jobs in Seattle, it's today a place where you can buy a Rolex or a Tesla. Freeman converted and enlarged the property to an enclosed mall in 1980. Many new condo and apartment towers have since sprouted around it.

Placing a value to the complex will be a future task for the brokers, when they set an asking price — or prices, depending on whether the retail, residential and offices are split into different offerings. The offices, with some 1.7 million square feet, face the same leasing challenges felt across the region. But the Bellevue office market still compares favorably with Seattle.

The collection's value — if and when it sells — will be supported by its location, in the very heart of downtown, a few minutes' walk to Bellevue Downtown Station. Ironically, well over a dozen years ago, Freeman opposed the light-rail crossing to Bellevue. That's now made the collection all the more valuable.

If it sells in its entirety, the buyer would have to be on the scale of a Blackstone or Brookfield, a big REIT, private equity, sovereign wealth fund or large pension fund. Using back-of-the-envelope math, the DJC would estimate a price tag of over $2 billion.

Still on hold, immediately south of the Macy's, is a possible addition of three or four buildings with more retail, hotel rooms and condos or apartments. That was once envisioned to add around 500,000 square feet to the collection. Such future development potential, plus the west parking garages, could attract the interest of New York developers like Silverstein Properties or Related Companies. The collection is unlikely to remain in local hands.