Bellevue Uwaijimaya to Move to New Location near I-405

The Bellevue Uwajimaya store will move from its Crossroads neighborhood location, 15555 NE 24th St., to the old Larry's Market location at 669 120th Ave. NE, a little east of downtown.

All of the company's four stores carry produce, Asian groceries and pantry staples, houseware and gifts, fresh and live seafood and a deli with food from a variety of Asian cultures. The Bellevue store has operated at NE 24th Street and Bel-Red Road for more than 25 years.

"We have been wanting to enlarge and update our Uwaijimaya Bellevue for several years. We wanted to find a location that is convenient and closer to downtown Bellevue," company spokesman Alan Kurimura said. The new location will be off of NE 8th Street, and in a complex that includes a Starbucks, a dry cleaners, and a Big Apple Bagels store.

Uwajimaya's new store will take up about 35,000 square feet of the old Larry's Market, about half the existing space in the building. The company expects to open the new store in spring of 2011.

The new location will be similar in size to the Renton location, which opened in 2009, which will give Uwajimaya room for new features at the Bellevue store, Kurimura said.

An update has been a long time coming, Kurimura said.

"We haven't updated the (Bellevue) store since we moved in after Safeway left," he said.

The company's roots are from a Japanese grocery delivery business started by Fujimatsu and Sadako Moriguchi in Tacoma in 1928. Fujimatsu Moriguchi would deliver imported goods to the native-Japanese millworkers and other laborers throughout Western Washington.

The first Uwajimaya store was founded in Seattle in 1946, after the Moriguchis returned from the internment camps. The store is named after the Japanese fishing community where the Moriguchis traced their roots. Today, Uwajimaya has four locations -- the flagship store at Uwajimaya Village in Seattle's International District, Bellevue, Renton and Beaverton, Ore.

The Wilburton neighborhood also has another large specialty grocery store about seven blocks away. Whole Foods, at 888 116th Avenue NE, specializes in organic foods and earth-friendly sundries. Bellevue also has another large grocery store that specializes in Asian products, Asian Food Center, on 14509 NE 20th St.