University Village (colloquially known as U-Village) is a shopping mallinSeattle, Washington, United States, located in the south corner of the Ravenna neighborhood to the north of the Downtown area.[1] It is an open-air shopping center which offers restaurants, locally owned boutiques, and national retailers, and is a popular retail destination in the region for home furnishings, popular fashions, gift items, and restaurants. It is currently owned by multimillionaire Stuart Sloan.[2]
The 24-acre (9.7 ha)[citation needed] shopping center was built in 1956 across NE 45th Street on an earlier part of the Montlake Landfill (since 1911, 1922–1966), taking out what remained of the Union Bay Marsh that was drained by the lowering of Lake Washington as a result of the opening of the Lake Washington Ship Canal (1913–1916).[4] Some wetland was later partially restored as the Union Bay Natural Area with the Center for Urban Horticulture.[5]
Until the early 1990s, the character of University Village was decidedly different. Most of its businesses were small, and the chain stores were all local: Ernst Hardware and Malmo Nursery, Lamonts department store (acquired by Gottschalks in 2000), Pay 'n Save Drugs (sold to PayLess Drug in the early 1990s), and QFC supermarket, then a much smaller facility on the western side of the property,[6] formerly an A&P store.[7][8] The present QFC store on the east edge opened in 1996, it was formerly a dairy facility from 1955 to 1991.[7][9]
There was even a bowling alley, Village Lanes, which was originally a roller rink in the 1950s, located near the northwest corner.[8] Many of the businesses began to falter toward the end of the 1980s, however, and in 1993 the owners of the mall decided to sell. For much of this period, University Village was owned by the Tektronix Retirement Investment Fund.
The chairman of QFC, Stuart Sloan, and his business partner Matt Griffin bought the property, and tenants such as those mentioned above began to move out.[10]Barnes & Noble was an anchor tenant after the mid-1990s renovation,[6] but closed at the end of 2011.[8] U-Village no longer has a hardware store, but features upscale national stores such as Restoration Hardware, Pottery Barn, Banana Republic, and Crate & Barrel instead (as well as related local specialty stores). Despite this, 61% of U-Village merchants are still local. (The Ernst and Pay n' Save corporate chains went out of business in the 1990s; adjacent QFC still nominally exists, but as a division of Kroger.)
Shops, entrance, and parking lot at University Village
Anchor tenants today are Bartell Drugs (locally owned 1890-2022), Apple Store,[11] Crate & Barrel, The Gap, and Pottery Barn.[12] Significant adjacent anchors are the Seattle QFC flagship store and a large Safeway. In 1991, neighborhood activists initiated a campaign with the City to "daylight" Ravenna Creek through Ravenna Park to Lake Washington, but the segment from the park to the University of Washington (UW) and the Union Bay Natural Area was successfully blocked by the owners of University Village. It has been recently updated to include more shops below the brand new medical center. [13]
The campus of the UW is to the west and south, the neighborhood of Bryant farther to the east, and the neighborhood of Ravenna to the north,[15] but portions of the surrounding neighborhoods are often referred to as being in "University Village" themselves, approximately west to 22nd Avenue NE, north to NE 55th Street, and east to Union Bay Place NE and 30th Avenue NE.<[citation needed] The area's principal arterials are 25th Avenue NE and NE 45th Street; 35th Avenue is a minor arterial. Collector arterials are NE Blakeley-Union Bay Place NE and NE 55th streets.[16]
^(1)
"Chronology". Ravenna Creek Alliance. n.d. Retrieved April 21, 2006. (2) Ravenna Creek Alliance (November 9, 2005). "Ravenna Creek Alliance: Specific Info". EarthLink. Retrieved April 21, 2006. (3) O'Neil
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Seattle City Clerk's Neighborhood Map Atlas (n.d.). ""Ravenna", map". Office of the Seattle City Clerk. Retrieved April 21, 2006.
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Seattle City Clerk's Neighborhood Map Atlas (January 12, 2004). "Low-Resolution Version"(PDF). Street Classification Maps. Seattle Department of Transportation. Archived from the original(PDF) on June 22, 2006. Retrieved April 21, 2006. For browser use; other versions for printing, cf. Bibliography. From "Principal, Minor and Collector arterials"Archived June 14, 2006, at the Wayback Machine, Seattle Department of Transportation, 2005.
"Chronology". Ravenna Creek Alliance. n.d. Archived from the original on March 3, 2016. Retrieved April 21, 2006.
Dorpat, Paul (June 18, 2001, updated May 2002). "Seattle Neighborhoods: University District -- Thumbnail History". Retrieved April 21, 2006. HistoryLink page updated from Paul Dorpat, Seattle: Now and Then Vols. 1, 2, and 3. Seattle: Tartu Publications, 1984, 1988; Walt Crowley and Paul Dorpat, "The Ave: Streetcars to Street Fairs", typescript dated 1995 in possession of Walt Crowley and Paul Dorpat, Seattle, Washington; Walt Crowley, Rites of Passage. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1995; Cal McCune, From Romance to Riot: A Seattle Memoir. Seattle: Cal McCune, 1996; Roy Nielsen, UniverCity: The City Within City: The Story of the University District Seattle: University Lions Foundation, ca. 1986; Clark Humphrey, Loser: the Real Seattle Music Story. Portland, OR: Feral House, 1995.
Ravenna Creek Alliance (November 9, 2005). "What's New". Retrieved April 21, 2006.
Seattle City Clerk's Neighborhood Map Atlas (n.d., map .jpg c. June 17, 2002). "Ravenna". Retrieved April 21, 2006. Maps "NN-1030S", "NN-1040S".jpg dated June 17, 2002.
Stein, Alan J. "Patches, Julius Pierpont", HistoryLink. March 2, 2003, retrieved April 21, 2006. Stein referenced Jack Broom, “The J.P. Generation," Pacific Magazine, The Seattle Times, April 4, 1993, pp. 6–11,14-17; Bill Cartmel, “Hi Ya, Patches Pals," Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 11 April 1971, pp. 6–7; Erik Lacitis, “Patches Understands – and Survives," The Seattle Times, February 23, 1978, p. A15; [no title], The East Side Journal, May 31, 1962, p. 3; Ibid. May 14, 1969, p. 19.
Warren, James R. (updated September 13, 2004). "Bartell, George H. Sr. (1868-1956)". September 16, 1999, corrected on April 17, 2002, and updated on September 13, 2004. Retrieved April 21, 2006. Warren referenced "A Century of Business," Puget Sound Business Journal, September 17, 1999; Junior Achievement of Greater Puget Sound Hall of Fame Series; "Bartell Drugs: All in the Family," Seattle Post-Intelligencer, February 22, 2000, p. C-1; Bartell Drugs Webpage (http://www.bartelldrugs.com). "For information on the origin of the soda fountain see the "About Inventors" Website ([1])."
