|
|
|
|
|
University Village, Seattle, WashingtonUniversity Village is an upscale shopping center in Seattle, Washington as well as its surrounding neighborhood. The 24-acre shopping center was built in 1956 across Northeast 45th Street from the Montlake Landfill, taking out what remained of the Union Bay wetland that was exposed by the lowering of Lake Washington as a result of the opening of the Lake Washington Ship Canal. Among its anchor tenants are Eddie Bauer, Barnes and Noble, and The Gap. 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, Malmo Nurseries, Lamonts Apparel, Pay n' Save Drugs, and QFC (a grocery). 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. The chairman of QFC and a partner bought it, and tenants such as those mentioned above began to move in. U-Village, as it is colloquially known, no longer has a hardware store or a nursery, but features national stores such as Pottery Barn, Banana Republic, Restoration Hardware, and Crate & Barrel instead. Despite this, 61% of U-Village merchants are still local. (Ernst, Malmo, Lamonts, and Pay n' Save went out of business in the 1990s; QFC still exists, but as a division of Kroger.) In the late 1990s, a proposal was floated to "daylight" Ravenna Creek across the University Village grounds, but the project was successfully blocked. Ravenna Creek will still be reconnected to University Slough, but by a pipe rather than above ground. The campus of the University of Washington is to the west and south, the neighborhood of Bryant to the east, and the neighborhood of Ravenna to the north, but portions of the surrounding neighborhoods are often referred to as being in "University Village" themselves, approximately west to 22nd Avenue Northeast, north to Northeast 55th Street, and east to Union Bay Place Northeast and 30th Avenue Northeast. The area's main thoroughfares are 25th Avenue Northeast (north- and southbound) and Northeast 45th, Northeast Blakeley, and Northeast 55th Streets (east- and westbound). External link
|
 |
| |
|
|