SEATTLE — Most of Seattle’s growing urban neighborhoods surround light-rail stations, but at least one is sprouting around an upscale, open-air shopping center.
There are more than 2,300 new apartments recently completed, currently under construction or planned in the blocks that encircle University Village, a sprawling collection of stores, restaurants, plazas and parking lots located northeast of the University of Washington campus.
Spurred by zoning changes and sky-high demand for housing across the city, the 10 or so new buildings with market-rate rents near U Village are targeting college students, young professionals, empty nesters and seniors.
The housing boom is smaller than a simultaneous surge underway west of the UW, in the University District, where 40-story towers are rising. Yet the U Village area is adding apartments at a scale on par with many of the city’s light-rail hubs, like Othello, Columbia City, Roosevelt and Northgate, where an old-school, enclosed mall is being redeveloped with housing.