Sibling Rivalry

team for Pacific Place and who is a minority owner of Seattle's highly popular University Village. "It's made for cars. It's not fun to walk ... and I'm a big believer in walking the streets."

For him, Seattle's very urbanity ensures its preeminence. "When you think of the great cities around the world, you don't think of individual stores or storefronts. You think of great streets to walk ... [and] dynamic urban places-theater, symphony, arts-and office workers and real streets with all the things that go along with real streets. Seattle's fortunately got a whole bunch of those good things going on."

Freeman is also more than happy to tick off Seattle's strengths: "It's where the biggest [Northwest] accounting firms are, the biggest law firms, the biggest government offices, sports stadiums, arts centers, banks...." On the other hand, he says, Bellevue is trying to be the regional center for the east side of the lake. "It's not trying to be a twin city of Seattle or even a competitor of Seattle."

 Maybe not, but merely by giving eastsiders a backyard alternative for their disposable dollars, via a buildup over the past two decades of an attractive inventory of retail, restaurants, hotels and entertainment options, Bellevue has skimmed from Seattle's pool. The pivotal point in its evolution from a slim-pickins shopping suburb to a robust retail hub was stemming the exodus of its own shoppers.

"In 1980, Bellevue customers were only shopping in Bellevue for 59 percent of what they bought; 41 percent were leaking to Southcenter, Northgate, downtown Seattle and other places," says Freeman. "There's no leakage now."

And the eastside has accrued a population built for buying. "They've become some of the best potential shoppers in terms of affluence and age and interest," he says. It is a customer base to be envied and mined. While the collection of cities making up the eastside is half the population of Seattle, it is home to 18 of the 20 wealthiest zip codes in the Puget Sound area and, through the second quarter of 2009, nearly succeeded in equaling the size of Seattle's retail sector. Although Seattle is the region's main magnet for tourism dollars, the suburbs now draw like-minded shoppers from around the West and western Canada. Freeman estimates up to 15 percent of his business comes from this tourism sector, and that's where he's focusing his latest marketing efforts, including a first-time ad campaign in Vogue magazine. "We could double our business, not by building another square foot, but just by effectively marketing what we have to this area," he predicts. "I mean, that's the sweet