It’s time for UVillage to get serious about density and public transit.
On Monday June 2nd the DPD will hold an early design-review meeting to discuss University Village’s plans to expand its retail space by 25% (100,000 sq feet) and parking by 500 additional spaces (433 according to the North Seattle Herald-Outlook).
UVillage gives itself credit for being a pedestrian friendly mall - but that pedestrian friendliness is often after you’ve driven there. Because UVillage is located in a less dense area of the city - it relies heavily on car traffic for its customers. And because UVillage is fairly insular - it is really hard to walk from UVillage to neighboring businesses (they actually discourage this by offering to tow your car), no Metro buses actually stop within UVillage proper, and nobody lives within UVillage - the result is that UVillage isn’t really creating a sustainable neighborhood.
I think now is the time for the city to step up and really encourage UVillage to start integrating public transportation into its planning. UVillage could make it easier for riders to pick up buses within the mall - and they could designate part of their Monday - Friday parking as a Park and Ride for NE Seattleites who could then hop on a Metro bus to commute downtown or the Eastside.
And here’s one additional crazy idea - UVillage is the perfect place for condos. Can you imagine? It’d be like living in Celebration, Florida. You’d be living in a security patrolled community that is safely removed from the outside world. During the day you could shop at your favorite stores while at night you could grab your groceries and stroll UVillage’s pleasant walkways. You could even walk to Husky football, basketball and softball games - and hop on the neighboring Burke Gilman bike trail.
Anyway, it’s not too often that you get a chance to give UVillage some advice, so this early design review meeting is a great opportunity for that.
UVillage Early Design Review Meeting
6:30pm University Heights Center - 5031 University Way NE
2 comments
[...] It’s being touted as Seattle’s greenest address? And even though I think Squirrelman’s old house may have given that claim a run for it’s money. It’s way greener than anything being built by the mall’s UVillage competitor. [...]
[...] beef with the planned development for this part of Seattle is that it’s largely car-centric (500 new parking spaces for UVillage, the UW continues to grow and also wants a renovated football stadium, and Children’s is [...]
Leave a Comment