A New U Due For A Makeover, University City Shopping Center Is Ideally Situatied To Become The Valley’s Town Center

She’s 32 years old, looking for love, and about to spend $6 million on a facelift.

Her name: University City Shopping Center.

Promoters are promising that the mall makeover will revitalize U-City and in the process create a “new downtown” for the Spokane Valley.

“We’ve gone through a major change,” admits Harry Magnuson, president of University City Inc., which owns the mall. “But there’s still a definite role for University City.”

Magnuson and his mall managers, Goodale and Barbieri Co., are still trying to figure out exactly what that role will be.

It’s not an easy task. Much has changed since U-City first opened in August of 1965. The Valley’s population has more than doubled and a new retail climate has emerged.

Back in 1965, the $3.5 million mall was sparkling new. U-City featured 29 stores and parking for 1,500 cars. It was then the second-largest shopping center in Spokane and the first air-conditioned mall in the state of Washington.

Today, U-City’s owner has new dreams about what the mall will become in the new millenium.

Magnuson wants to convert the site into a “community retail center,” a strip mall with destination shops and services. His vision coincides with that of the Spokane Regional Transportation Council (SRTC), which sees a “new downtown” at U-City, replete with shops, sidewalks, green space, and an efficient commuter corridor.

The U-City makeover is due. In 1976, the president of the mall’s previous management company, McCarthy Management Corp., even stated in court that the lifespan of U-City would total only 30 years, not the 40 years predicted by the Internal Revenue Service.

That prediction wasn’t too far off. After the opening of the Spokane Valley Mall in August, 32-year-old U-City lost its original anchor tenant, J.C. Penney, and walk-in traffic dropped dramatically.

But that doesn’t necessarily spell the end for U-City, retail analysts say.

“The idea that U-City is dead and gone is just not true,” said Michelle Driano, a marketing analyst for Seattle-based Sabey Corp. “It’s still a great location and a great piece of dirt.

“We all basically knew U-City as a shopping center. But why can’t it be something different?”

U-City sits on a 17-acre site at Sprague Avenue and University Road. About 75 percent of all Valley residents live within a three-mile radius of that intersection, said David Peterson, vice president of Goodale and Barbieri.

Location means everything, Peterson said, and with the proposed Valley couplet, location makes U-City a prime player in the action.

The couplet is a proposed commuter corridor that would have Sprague Avenue as a one-way westbound route, and Second Avenue as its eastbound counterpart. U-City would sit between the eastbound and westbound commuter routes, with frontage on both.

After several times announcing redevelopment plans that didn’t come to fruition, Peterson now says University City Inc. plans to infuse about $6 million into mall improvements and new construction. Crews will clip 42 feet off the old Newberry’s building, put new facades on the mall’s east wing, and demolish the old Rosauers grocery store.

Rosauers will also play a big role in the redevelopment of U-City. Last month, the grocery company announced it would build a new supermarket at U-City. Larry Geller, Rosauers president, said he expects to sign a lease this week for the new U-City store.

“We’re in the final stages of concluding the negotiations,” said Geller.

Demolition of the old U-City Rosauers building, which will clear the site for the new supermarket, has begun. Geller said he expects construction of the new store to start before winter. Once started, the store should be completed in about seven months.

The new U-City Rosauers store will allow easy access from both Second Avenue and Sprague Avenue, a design intended to welcome traffic from the proposed couplet.

The Valley couplet, perhaps in combination with one or more other high-capacity transportation corridors, is a key to U-City becoming the Valley’s new downtown, said Glenn Miles of the Spokane Regional Transportation Council.

“The land use and the transportation use developments need to be done together, so that one is complementing the other,” says Miles.

Along with the couplet, transportation planners have talked of building a light rail system or high capacity bus lanes alongside U-City.

After several community brainstorming sessions with Valley citizens, the SRTC commissioned an artist to create renderings how the U-City area might look in the future, based on the citizen input gathered from those focus groups.

Instead of depicting the existing mall, the drawings show a bustling, Disney-like village of shops, walkways and green spaces.

Peterson says U-City will enter the new millenium as a multi-purpose, community-oriented retail center. It would boast an array of destination stores such as bookstores, shoe repair shops, laundromats and craft stores.

Architecture is also important to creating a U-City “Main Street” in the Valley.

“We do not want a look that is 1,200 linear feet of block building, all white,” said Peterson. “From a vision standpoint, we want unique character. It might gravitate toward a streetfront in a downtown more than a shopping mall.”

Peterson says he has “letters of intent” from several major stores, but won’t name any tenants.

Retailers who have remained at U-City are hopeful, even though walk-in traffic has dropped dramatically since the opening of the Spokane Valley Mall.

“I have total confidence that they will come through with their plan,” said Pat Kroetch, co-owner of Percy’s restaurant. “And it’s going to be before the snow flies.”

Business is still booming at B. Dalton bookstore.

“We’re doing fine,” says Jan Anderson-Baker, manager of the store. “We are totally a destination store and have been for three years.”

But not everybody’s happy.

“It just wasn’t packing it,” said Cheryl Sieveke, who moved her Cartoon Classics store from U-City to the Spokane Valley Mall last month. “I wish they could work U-City into something else, but they’ve passed up too many opportunities and now they have nothing to attract anyone.”

Don Clifton, owner of Reel One Inc., the company that operates the Garland Theater, said he approached U-City about opening a three-screen, 1,200-seat discount theater in the old Newberry’s building, but mall management wasn’t interested.

“I don’t want to pretend that we’re the savior of the mall, but I know what we did for the Garland district,” Clifton says. “When you bring 30,000 people to an area each month, you can’t help but impact the economics of the whole area.”

Peterson wouldn’t comment on Clifton’s proposed theater.

Retail experts agree that for U-City to thrive again, it must revitalize itself and redefine its niche in the Valley retail market.

“Their only saving grace is to demall the mall, or turn it into a big strip center,” says John Morrow, a regional mall developer who owns Situs Realty.

“That property is history as an enclosed mall.”

Thirty-two years ago last month, University City Shopping Center was born - a new mall with a bright future.

Will the future bring a rebirth for U-City?

The question doesn’t have an overnight answer.

“I’ve come to experience that the whole retail process moves very slowly,” says Magnuson.

“We’ve got a role to fill, and we’ll have to get in touch with that as we go along. But we’re moving ahead.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 2 photos