The Freeman family announced last week that Kemper Development Company is exploring a sale of The Bellevue Collection, the 5.5 million square foot complex that includes Bellevue Square, Bellevue Place, and Lincoln Square North and South. The company says it plans to select a broker soon to begin the process, and no buyer has been identified yet. Operations continue as normal in the meantime, and community programming, including Snowflake Lane, is confirmed through the rest of 2026.
This is the property that turned downtown Bellevue into a real competitor to downtown Seattle. Kemper Freeman took over the company from his father in the mid-1970s and spent the better part of five decades building it from a 16-store outdoor shopping center into three office towers, three major hotels, luxury apartments, over 200 stores and restaurants, and two movie theaters.
Freeman's retirement last year is cited as one of several factors behind the decision to explore a sale now.
Why this matters for the Eastside beyond the headline: a change in ownership at this scale, whoever it ends up being, will shape how downtown Bellevue evolves over the next decade. This is the anchor asset for the entire Eastside retail and hospitality core. A new owner brings new capital, new priorities, and potentially a different vision for how that 51 acre footprint gets used. For anyone who owns property near Bellevue Square, Lincoln Square, or Bellevue Place, this is worth watching closely, not because anything changes tomorrow, but because whoever buys this reshapes property values in downtown Bellevue for years to come.
