Suburbs Unlimited

As boss of Seattle's $30-million-a-year Bon Marche department store, Kentucky-born Rex Liebert Allison, 39, was afraid that he wasn't getting his share of customers from the city's fast-growing population. Hemmed in on the south by its industrial district and on the east & west by Lake Washington and Puget Sound, Seattle was moving north, away from the old shopping area.

To find a way to reach the new Seattle citizens, Rex Allison in 1946 ordered an aerial photographic map of the entire north end. He pored over the map with pencil and compass, soon found that a suburban branch located just outside the city limits would be within twelve minutes' driving time of 275,000 people who spend $500 million every year. Allison sold the idea to Allied Stores Corp. (owner of Bon Marche), then persuaded the Equitable Life Assurance Society to buy $6,000,000 worth of mortgages to help finance a super shopping center.

No Small Change. Last week Allison's $18 million Northgate shopping center, planned as the biggest in the U.S., opened its doors. Bon Marche's brand-new $3,000,000 suburban branch, first unit to open, was the headline attraction. On the first day 15,000 customers jammed the store, and at week's end, men's suits were selling so fast that Bon Marche had to truck suits to the downtown store for alterations. So many diners crowded into the store's 250-seat "Legend Room" restaurant that on Sunday, when the rest of the store was closed, the restaurant was cleaned out of dollar bills for making change. (The resourceful manager persuaded the pastor of nearby St. Catherine's Church to trade him 150 singles from the morning's collection.)

At week's end, after seven days' operation, Bon Marche was doing business at the rate of $10 million a year. Allison, who had only counted on $5 million, thought his gross might hit $20 million by the time the rest of Northgate is in full swing. By midsummer Northgate's five-block long, 48-ft.-wide "Miracle Mall" will be lined with 70-odd shops, a 1,468-seat theater and a four-story office building. Among the shops: J. J. Newberry, Firestone tires, and a C. & H. supermarket, the biggest in the state of Washington.

No Margin for Error. To pull $50 million a year into Northgate, Allison's architects designed the center with the precision of a cash register. The parking lots will hold 4,000 cars, and no automobile will be more than 600 ft. from the nearest store.

At the two supermarkets a housewife can check her arm-filling purchases, then move on to other shops, her arms free for more parcels. When she is finished she picks up her groceries at a kiosk in the parking lot. Even the tenants in the office building are used as customer bait: Northgate is leasing space mostly to doctors, dentists and real-estate salesmen. Rex Allison figures that they will attract crowds of shoppers every day.

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