SEATTLE — On a busy, loud street in the heart of downtown Seattle, a white and purple Ben Bridge banner matches the green and gold Rolex sign. The opening of the new flagship store marks a new chapter for one of Seattle’s oldest companies.
Ben Bridge’s new store quietly opened May 26 after the jeweler left its previous location of 94 years. The move into the store at 1530 Fifth Ave. plants a flag for the next generations of the company, CEO Lisa Bridge said.
The store, which displays watches from luxury designers and Italian gold necklaces, is designed to tell the story of Ben Bridge since it was established in Seattle in 1912. It includes a portrait of Sally Silverman Bridge, wife of Ben Bridge and daughter of founder Sam Silverman. It also displays pieces made of Pacific Northwest tree wood, symbolizing its Seattle heritage.
Lisa Bridge said she wanted to bring pieces of Ben Bridge history to the flagship store.
“Finding the right way and the right tone to be able to tell those rich stories makes a difference,” Lisa Bridge said. “Trying to do more storytelling and bringing that out in a new way is exciting and challenging, but really ultimately important.”
Downtown roots
Lisa Bridge, who has been CEO for more than four years, said she chose the new location because of the street traffic. The store sits across from Nordstrom and Westlake Center.
“The day that we opened the store — the beautiful sunny day — there were people streaming down the street. There was a live band playing across the street. There was just an energy here to this corner that felt really good,” Lisa Bridge said.
After years of pandemic slowdown, downtown foot traffic has improved in the past year. More than 2.4 million visited downtown in April, an increase of nearly 5% compared with April 2022 and 92% of total foot traffic of April 2019, according to data from the Downtown Seattle Association.
Along with the move is the Ben Bridge clock, which is being relocated from the previous flagship store at Fourth Avenue and Pike Street to the new location, which once housed a Gap store. The Ben Bridge clock will replace a different clock by artist Bill Whipple. The removal of Whipple’s clock caused a puncture on the roof of the light-rail Westlake Station.
Ben Bridge, one of Seattle’s oldest retailers that was sold to Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway in 2000, has had a history of involvement with downtown. Lisa Bridge’s uncle Herb Bridge was known as “Mr. Downtown” for his work advocating for the city’s core, helping create the Metropolitan Improvement District.
Lisa Bridge said she wants to continue the legacy of advocating for downtown. The opening of the new flagship comes at a time when downtown has seen retailers come and go amid pandemic effects coupled with safety and crime concerns. Nike, Carhartt and Starbucks have closed downtown stores. Meanwhile, Uniqlo and Canadian furniture brand Sundays opened stores downtown, and local bakery Piroshky Piroshky reopened a location on Third Avenue.
Downtown has grappled with crime rates that surged in 2021 to 2,607 from 1,935 in the previous year, and persisted in 2022 with 2,597 offenses in total, according to data from the Seattle Police Department.
The crime rates are still lower than in 2019, when SPD recorded 3,428 offenses. Lisa Bridge said she has seen improvement in downtown and added she wants to encourage more retail to join Ben Bridge in the city’s core.
“You can feel that there is an energy in downtown Seattle,” she said. “There’s no doubt, there’s still work to do but [we] can’t live in fear. And we want to be where the people are.”
Lisa Bridge said she felt that fear in 2020 thinking it might be the end of the business, which has been run by the family for five generations. Shortly after she became CEO, Ben Bridge closed stores for an average of 106 days after COVID-19 hit.
In May 2020, two months after widespread closures because of the pandemic, downtown Seattle became a protest destination in the aftermath of the killing of George Floyd in Minnesota. During one of the days of the protest, Lisa Bridge said she remembers a “horrifying feeling” when she saw fire reflected on the downtown flagship store.
Business performance
Despite the fear that came with the years of pandemic and 2020 downtown protests, Lisa Bridge said downtown remains home for Ben Bridge, and business is thriving. She said the jeweler broke records in the past two years, but she declined to provide exact numbers.
Demand for luxury items has increased since 2021. Consulting firm Bain predicts the global luxury consumer base will grow at an annual rate between 5% and 7% from 2022 to 2030. Within luxury, the jewelry market will grow at an annual rate of 4.6% from 2023 to 2030, according to research and consulting company Grand View Research.
Other jewelers may be seeing signs of recovery as well. Kay Jewelers and Zales parent company Signet Jewelers said in March the pandemic led to a decrease in the number of engagements and a business slowdown, but recently increased its financial outlook. Signet expects a rebound in weddings to drive as much as $10 billion in annual sales within the next five years.
Ben Bridge now has 36 stores across the country — a number that decreased in 2022, when the company sold 37 Pandora stores back to the Pandora Group. Once the largest franchisee of Pandora, Lisa Bridge said the goal is now investing on key properties to place a focus on customer experience. The company is doing more business now with a third of store count than in 2019, she said.
“Our values do not change. All of the other things have to be relevant in retail. You have to continue to evolve,” Lisa Bridge said. “Some of the wisdom in the past generations has been that understanding of how to turn over the business relatively early on and continue to evolve to meet the needs of our customers.”
One area of development has been technology, she said. Ben Bridge has holograms of ring prototypes, QR codes that show rings being made and personal jewelers who can assist people online. The company also hired a vice president of technology and digital experiences, she said.
Lisa Bridge said that as the flagship will remain there for the next generations to come, she envisions a future Seattle that will be a hub for innovation and creativity.
“There’s a pioneering spirit, I think, to people in Seattle and people who love Seattle,” she said.
