Old Bellevue's Main Street Is Losing Its Shopkeepers One Storefront at a Time. Here's Where They Went.

The storefront at 10220 Main Street is dark. Veritables spent 18 years there selling eclectic interiors, art and gifts, and it was a regular stop on the Old Bellevue wine walk as recently as May. The shop closed on Oct. 15. A few doors down at 10246 Main, Matcha Magic set Nov. 1 as its closing date, four and a half years after opening in the former Jujubeet space.

Both shops sit on the same parcel, and so does almost every other recent departure on this stretch. It is the site of North of Main, the eight-story building Vander Hoek Corporation plans at Main Street and 103rd Avenue Northeast. The plans call for 176 market-rate apartments, 10,363 square feet of ground-floor commercial space and 154 parking stalls on roughly 0.71 acres, and every existing structure on the site comes down. This year Bellevue also adopted rules meant to protect the character of this street. Those rules cover facades, doors and cornices. They do not cover tenants, and they do not apply to the block that is emptying out.

The block, storefront by storefront

The departures span about 13 months, from September 2025 to this month.

Only one of these businesses has reopened so far, and it went well past Main Street. Glassybaby, which sold hand-blown glass votives, candleholders and drinkers on the corner for more than 15 years, opened a larger store at Design Market, 1048 116th Ave. NE, across from Overlake Hospital. If you used to stop in on the way to the waterfront, it's now a drive.

Veritables owner Marie Harris told customers on Instagram that the redevelopment decision was out of her hands. She plans buying trips for pop-ups and will scout a new location. "This is not the last chapter," she wrote, as reported by Downtown Bellevue Network. No location or pop-up timeline has been announced.

Matcha Magic started on Main Street and has since added cafes in Redmond, Capitol Hill, South Lake Union, New Orleans and Tempe, Arizona. Its operator, Bellevue-based Conscious Hospitality Group, told Downtown Bellevue Network that it's looking for a new Bellevue location. No address or reopening date has been set.

One owner's story shows the pattern on both sides of the street. Rachael Nov founded La Ree Boutique, which closed last September with a farewell gathering for longtime customers. Her fine designer jewelry store, Gin & The Banker, is still on Main Street. It's expanding, too: construction started this spring on the former Lorelei Optical space next door, with no completion date announced. Two businesses run by the same owner ended up with opposite outcomes, and the only difference was which building each one leased in.

Why the new Main Street rules didn't change any of this

North of Main is what prompted the city to act in the first place. On Feb. 10 the City Council voted 4-3 to adopt an interim official control for Main Street between 100th Avenue NE and Bellevue Way. The rule requires new development to be compatible with neighboring buildings and the district's established design character. In July the council renewed it unanimously for six months, through February 2027. Before that vote, it clarified the standards and added incentives for preserving existing facades, after property owners and developers raised concerns about compliance costs and vague requirements.

North of Main isn't subject to any of it. The project had already vested under the earlier zoning, so it goes ahead unaffected, and the interim control applies only to Main Street properties that haven't yet entered permitting.

Even on the blocks the rules do cover, they stop at the storefront glass. Downtown Bellevue Network's report on the July renewal put it plainly:

"The city does not have the authority to mandate that property owners retain specific commercial occupants through redevelopment."

According to the same report, tenant retention would stay out of the city's reach under any future rules, too. Permanent standards could shape building size, scale and architecture.

What the rules do protect

What the rules regulate shows what the city is able to control here. The amended ordinance text on the City of Bellevue site deals with the street's physical rhythm:

• Ground-floor doors on facades facing Main Street
• No more than 30 feet between doors or qualifying solid vertical elements
• Facades aligned with neighboring buildings, finished with a cornice
• A report filed before any facade on a building over 50 years old is demolished or significantly altered, documenting its address, construction year, historic uses, style, materials and photographs
• A preservation incentive of 100 bonus points for every $1,000 in documented costs spent preserving historic facades or other historic design features

The original February rule set a higher bar. An owner could remove a facade older than 50 years only after showing it had no historic or cultural value. None of the buildings in the corridor has official landmark status at the state or national level.

Put together, these rules protect a pedestrian-scale street with frequent doors and older facades kept where owners choose to keep them. Who sells matcha or glass votives behind those doors is left to leases and landlords. The North of Main building will have more than 10,000 square feet of ground-floor commercial space for that market to fill. The project hasn't named any retail tenants, and no confirmed construction start date has been published.

This piece is general information about city rules, not legal advice. If you own property in the corridor, confirm how the interim control applies to your parcel with the city and your own attorney.

Meanwhile, new businesses are arriving a few doors away

The same market that's clearing one block is filling storefronts elsewhere on the street. These are the newer names on Main Street:

1. Arctic Elevation, a wellness center. Its Bellevue location page lists 10537 Main Street as now open.
2. Bar da Vila, a Brazilian restaurant. Its website still says it's opening soon at 10145 Main Street, with no date posted.
3. Indigo Cow and Machi Machi, a Japanese soft-serve shop and a bubble tea brand, were announced in January to share a space at Main Street Flats. Indigo Cow's Bellevue Way location had closed, and Machi Machi would be making its first Bellevue appearance. No opening date was given.

The newcomers lean toward food, drinks and wellness. The shops leaving the North of Main block were mostly long-running independents selling clothing, home goods and gifts. On Main Street, the shop mix is being reset one address at a time, depending on each owner's plans for each parcel.

As the block changes this winter, the most useful things to follow are the openings and relocations themselves. Watch for a new Matcha Magic address, Veritables pop-up dates, news from Araya's Place and Lavender Spa, and opening days for Bar da Vila and the Main Street Flats shops.

If you own a home near Main Street and want to know how a corridor in transition affects what your property is worth, Michele Schuler and The Schuler Team can show you how we read this block-by-block change in a valuation. Request Your Private Home Valuation.