Kemper Freeman runs what he claims is the most-visited retail destination in the Pacific Northwest, lucrative enough to make him a billionaire. What it hasn’t done is make him particularly popular in the Seattle area.
The 75-year-old Freeman has vigorously opposed a $54 billion light-rail project, pitting himself against environmentalists, local government and even a business group his father established back in the ’70s. He’s also a Republican and a Donald Trump donor. None of this goes over well in a county that overwhelmingly voted for Hillary Clinton.
“He’s kind of a lightning rod with some groups,” observed John Stokes, mayor of Bellevue, where Freeman’s real estate sits. “You say Kemper is for it and then they’re against it, and then you have people where if Kemper’s for it, then they are, too.”
Love him or hate him, it’s hard to avoid Freeman’s presence in Bellevue, a well-off city of about 130,000 people directly across Lake Washington from Seattle. He operates 4 million square feet of retail, office towers, hotels and luxury residences that have anchored the city’s transformation from a sleepy hamlet into one of America’s wealthiest enclaves, with Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos among the billionaires living nearby.
In the past few decades, Freeman’s property value has exploded as Microsoft Corp. added tens of thousands of well-paid jobs at its headquarters in nearby Redmond. Now, he’ll soon open a $1.2 billion expansion that includes restaurants, luxury apartments and a 31-story office tower. Among the future tenants: Steve Ballmer, on the top office floor, and Gabe Newell’s gaming company, Valve Corp., taking at least nine floors.
$2 Billion Value
Remarkably, all of his holdings are concentrated along just six blocks — and their worth makes Freeman a billionaire, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. His family’s property holdings are valued at about $2 billion, of which Freeman and his two daughters own a majority stake.
“We don’t operate anywhere else in the world,” said Freeman. “We’ve had every opportunity known to mankind, but we’ve got more than we can do right here.”
Freeman is reluctant to discuss his wealth — not so his opposition to Seattle’s expansion of light rail. A referendum to begin the project passed on Nov. 8 with a 58 percent yes vote. Design work is underway, and construction is expected to start in 2020.
Rattling off droves of statistics and studies, he argues that public funds would be better spent on roads, highways and buses to relieve the area’s congestion more quickly and cheaply. He resigned in 2011 from the Bellevue Downtown Association, a group his father helped found in 1974, over its support for the proposal, though he’s since rejoined.
‘A Fraud’
“Light rail is, in my opinion, a fraud,” he said, arguing that such solutions make sense only in cities with big, concentrated populations, like New York and Chicago.
Proponents contend Freeman is too wedded to the automobile, putting his own business interests ahead of the wider population; most visitors to Bellevue Collection arrive by car.
“He’s on the wrong side of every important civic issue,” said venture capitalist Nick Hanauer, who supported the light-rail expansion. “If it’s good for Bellevue Square then it must be good for the world.”
In left-leaning King County, Freeman also stands out for his support of Donald Trump. Although the president-elect wasn’t his first choice among the Republican candidates, Freeman donated $100,000 to Trump’s campaign and hopes his billionaire peer’s unconventional approach might streamline the federal bureaucracy.
Despite a distrust of government bloat, Freeman and his ancestors have a history of local government involvement.
The Freeman family played a central role in the creation of modern Bellevue. Freeman’s grandfather, Miller, campaigned for the floating bridge connecting Seattle to the Eastside, which opened in 1940. He’s a controversial figure who led virulent criticism of Japanese immigrants. Many were driven from their Bellevue strawberry farms as part of the internment of Japanese Americans following Pearl Harbor, according to “Strawberry Days,” an account of the community’s destruction by David Neiwert.
Freeman said his grandfather is being portrayed unfairly and supporters of the light-rail project have delighted in stirring up the issue in recent times.
In 1946, Kemper Freeman’s father opened a 16-store development known as Bellevue Shopping Square on 10 acres of farmland. Freeman, his only son, served two terms in the state legislature in the 1970s, before stepping down to help manage expansion of the retail center. Central to its success was the free parking that attracted shoppers to a region that had a happy knack of luring some of the world’s biggest businesses.
“Boeing, Boeing and Boeing in those days,” Freeman recalls. “When Boeing was off, the whole market was off. Then along out of thin air comes Microsoft and Costco and many other incredible companies.”
He expanded into offices and hotels by opening Bellevue Place in 1988, which lies diagonally across from his father’s shopping center. Then when the neighboring Lincoln Square development ran into trouble in 2003, Freeman took that over and oversaw its completion two years later.
Harley-Davidsons
Today, the cluster of shops, restaurant and offices owned and operated by the closely held Kemper Development Company attracts 25 million visitors a year, according to Freeman.
He lives in a 39th-floor condo on his development, and his main indulgence is a collection of five motorcycles, including three Harley-Davidsons.
He’s cautioned his two daughters not to bank on any inheritance, even from the stakes in the business he’s already given them.
“I told them pretend that your family has nothing, because it may turn out that’s what we have,” Freeman said. “In real estate you can lose it all in a blink of an eye.”
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.
