We were excited to see University Village featured in the Puget Sound Business Journal this month in "Anatomy of U Village." The article explores how the Seattle lifestyle center has evolved to become a well-loved community destination as well as one of the top performing retail centers in the country.
GGLO's Bill Gaylord has worked with University Village on numerous expansions and renovations since 1995 and shared some thoughts on how design for the human experience makes U Village a lasting success: "It's the attention to detail, the buildings, the amenities and the shopping environment. The spaces between the buildings create intimate gathering places and the pedestrian pathways and landscaping are integrated to create a seamless, quality experience." Bill and U Village coined the term "steppingstone buildings" more than 12 years ago to shorten the distance between buildings and parking, all to enhance the experience visitors have walking from store to store through the Village.
Part of what keeps U Village an interesting place to visit is the constant change, Bill says. "There's always something new at U Village, always something to watch - it keeps the visitor's experience active."
Bill mentioned the wider appeal of U Village as key to its popularity. "The Village serves the neighborhood as well as being a destination for the greater city. It's a place where moms bring their kids and meet friends, families bring their out of town guests. The proximity to UW brings students and other young people, and it attracts people from longer distances in the Puget Sound region, and even Asian tour groups."
Many years ago, before "lifestyle retail centers" became part of the shoppers' lexicon, Bill was asked to present a case study of University Village at the Canadian Urban Institute annual conference in Toronto. "What surprised me was how many people had visited U Village and enjoyed its unique built environment, designed with peoples' experience in mind."
March 18, GGLO hosted the final event in a seven month panel discussion series on transit-oriented communities (TOC). The series was the first phase of a partnership between Seattle non-profit group Futurewise and GGLO to develop a “Blueprint for Transit-Oriented Communities.”
Each session in the series addressed a specific TOC-related topic, with a panel of local experts leading the discussion. The information and insight generated in the panel discussions will be compiled and synthesized to create the stand-alone Blueprint document, which is intended to provide inspiration and guidance for high-quality TOC, and to serve as an advocacy manual for station area planning and development. Stay tuned for further developments on the Blueprint, including a formal launch in early Fall 2009.
Last Wednesday’s panel focused on lessons learned from great transit-oriented communities, and attempted to address the question: Where do we go from here? Panel speakers included GGLO’s own David Cutler, along with the nationally recognized TOC expert GB Arrington of PB Placemaking in Portland, and Dan Rosenfeld of Urban Partners, a firm with extensive transit-oriented development experience in the Los Angeles area.
About 50 people attended the session, held in GGLOSPACE on the Steps, GGLO’s event space off of Harbor Steps at First and University downtown. The firm offers the space as an event venue to groups who are contributing to the discussion on urbanism and design in Seattle. Future events include the Seattle Great City Initiative lunch forum series, and the People’s Waterfront Coalition waterfront planning sessions.
