^{Hannelore Sudermann}

Where, among the tall towers, chain restaurants, and glass-fronted retail stores of the new Bellevue, you may wonder, is the city’s heart? What keeps this corporate paradise from being just like any other cold and faceless metropolis?

Those questions are nagging the community as well.

The Bellevue Arts Museum, tucked into the middle of the most recent development on NE 6th Street and Bellevue Way, may have found one of the answers. But it wasn’t easy.

After spending $23 million to lure a big-name architect like Steven Holl and build a statement-making, award-winning art museum, the Bellevue arts community had to close their new museum in 2003, citing budget, attendance, and staffing problems. It was just two years after the grand opening. The avant-garde building had been put in place to transform Bellevue from a suburban enclave to an authentic city. But somehow the innovative building, the contemporary art it housed, and the up-and-coming community it was designed to serve didn’t mesh. “The very public failure in Bellevue has sent a shudder through the museum world,” said a New York Times story in 2004.

It took a new curator, $3 million in interior renovations, and the revival of a half-century-old concept to save the museum. The inspiration for recasting the museum was the Bellevue Arts and Crafts Fair, which dates back to 1947. The popular fair was one of the first in the region, attracting 30,000 visitors the first year and 60,000 the next.

By rediscovering that arts and crafts mission and changing focus from fine art to creative arts, the Bellevue Arts Museum is returning to its role as the Pacific Northwest’s center for exploring art, craft, and design. When the museum opened for a second time in June 2005, it featured an artful teapot exhibition, a show of glass from the early days of the Pilchuck Glass School, and art nouveau-flavored iron work by Albert Paley. The mix of arts and crafts seems to have succeeded. Now the museum not only features fine original pieces, it offers art classes and workshops, and emphasizes Northwest artists.

The museum also runs the annual Arts and Crafts Fair. This July marked the 60th year of the downtown event, which lately has drawn more than 300,000 people to the city’s streets.

Bellevue is returning to its roots in other ways, too. The Eastside Heritage Center has reinstated the Strawberry Festival, one of Bellevue’s earliest community events. Then there is Old Bellevue itself, with its pedestrian-friendly streets, locally owned businesses, and the Norman Rockwell flavor that developed in the community in the 30s, 40s, and 50s.

In many ways, yes, Bellevue has all the streetscapes and upscale shopping you can find in any big city, says architect Dan Meyers. . . Still, “we are creating a memorable place. That’s what’s next.”

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