U-City Launches Redevelopment Project

Demolition began Wednesday on University City Shopping Center’s east wing, setting the stage for a new Rosauers supermarket and a redevelopment of the mall.

“We look forward to revitalizing this section of the Valley,” said Tim Taylor of the mall’s merchants association, before taking a ceremonial swing at the building with a sledge hammer.

During the project’s first phase, the east wing will be demolished and the old Newberry’s store will be given a new facade and developed for new tenants, said Gary Bernardo, the project’s architect, at a news conference Wednesday.

Rosauers plans to build a 50,000-square-foot store on the same site it occupied before leaving U-City and moving down the street to 10920 E. Sprague in 1990. The supermarket is scheduled to open next spring.

Percy’s, a restaurant at U-City, will become a free-standing building, Bernardo said.

Phase two will extend the mall west to Walnut Street with other major retailers and smaller stores surrounding the complex. The redeveloped mall, which fronts Sprague to the north and Second to the south, will have parking for 2,400 vehicles.

Along Sprague, five small retail pads, ranging in size from 3,000 to 7,500 square feet will be built, joining the new Taco Bell on the mall’s northeast corner.

Development plans also show an additional six pads along Second, ranging from 2,000 to 5,500 square feet. Three larger retailers will occupy redeveloped space in the middle.

Jim Bendixson, representing mall manager Goodale and Barbieri Group of Cos., would not disclose the names of any of the mall’s potential new tenants, nor would he say when such announcements might be made.

The redevelopment announcement comes one week before the scheduled opening of the new 715,000-square-foot Spokane Valley Mall, which has siphoned off several of U-City’s tenants, including most recently, its last anchor tenant, J.C. Penney.

, DataTimes