Upscaling Seattle: Our Once Middle-Class City Has Shifted

In our bi-monthly Seattlemag.com column, Knute Berger–who writes regularly for Seattle Magazine and Crosscut.com and is a frequent pundit on KUOW–takes an in-depth look at some of the highly topical and sometimes polarizing issues in our city.

Seattle is upsizing—soon many neighborhoods will be sprouting high-rises—but we’re also “upscaling.” Our once stolidly middle-class city that used to be known for selling sensible clothes and decent coffee to the masses is now watching its major brands become skewed toward high-end, international tastes.

One example is Starbucks’ pivot to gourmet coffee bars designed for the aficionado where you can buy coffee for $80 per pound. Starbucks Reserve Roastery and Tasting Room in Seattle, which rolled out earlier this year, is at the forefront of a global push and the first of some 500 such exclusive coffee boutiques. They feature limited “edition” premium coffees, some also available by subscription. This is in response to coffee competition and fueled by market forces, like new Asian wealth.

The original Starbucks back in the ‘70s appealed to a cult of coffee buffs, but its approach was more crafty and even egalitarian: bringing a good brew to the middle brow public from a funky shop in the Pike Place Market, and later to every strip mall. Starbucks made better coffee than most of us were used to, and raised the price of a cup, but its emphasis has been on mass, not class. Now the focus is on snob appeal, upscaling for the Frasier Cranes among us. No wonder the idea is taking off here—it reflects our real estate market.

Another example is Nordstrom. The Seattle Times reports the Seattle-based department store chain is remodeling its downtown flagship store to create an “‘international destination’ experience that will leave tourists talking.” This, the Times says, is “a new twist for what has traditionally been an upper-middle-class retailer.”

Some remember when Nordstrom was mainly a shoe store, but it gained international fame and success as a retailer that appealed to modern mainstream tastes with old-fashioned values of service. It reflected the Northwest-Scandinavian ideal of sensible clothes—especially for business people who work in fields where “casual Friday” is a thing—to go along with good values and sensible shoes. But like Starbucks, they’re responding to international trends, becoming a destination experience, “one that visitors from Beijing or Shanghai will be talking about when they go home.”

The Galeries Lafayette in Paris or Harrods in London are among those cited as role models for the new Nordstrom, and anyone who has shopped in those emporiums can see why: a fabulous, historic spaces that are as fun to wander in as a farmer’s market (but with pricier price tags). Nordstrom plans to add more retail space and a high-end cocktail bar where you can “order $10 craft cocktails such as the Rent Check (made with tequila, St. Germaine cordial, jalapeño syrup, lime and muddled watermelon), and nibble on items such as ricotta meatballs and cilantro lime chicken tacos.” That combination sounds like it would produce a memorable international experience of gagging, but to each his own.

The upscaling of the downtown Nordstrom is a response to current retail realities (competing with online sales) and the spenders who spend downtown (upscale residents and well-to-do tourists). I have no objection to their trying to rejuvenate their retail anchor (they’re doing the same in San Francisco and Chicago). But I think it’s good to acknowledge the cultural shift.

As both these iconic Northwest retailers respond to global markets, these trends reflect some of the ways Seattle itself is changing. In a country with a shrinking middle class, in a world where the globetrotting haves have more, brands flock to where the money is, and that’s not where most of us are anymore.