(Image: Seattle U)

By Domenic Strazzabosco

With the closures and struggles of big chain grocery stores and drugstores, finding some everyday things for sale around Capitol Hill can be a challenge. A resource you might think is there just for the college kids might help.

With a redesign and an expanded retail mission, Seattle University’s Campus Store on the corner of 12th and Madison is eager to welcome students as well as anyone from the Capitol Hill neighborhood through its doors. With small selections of household goods and toiletries, snacks and plenty of Seattle U merchandise, the hope is that the store will be used for more than a quick stop by for students to pick up supplies.

The changing realities about the way students buy textbooks made way for the changes.

“The space was really designed to meander and relax,” said Michelle Conklin, Director of Campus Retail Services, during a tour of the new space with CHS. “Come in, enjoy the scenery, and take in what we have to offer.”

Savvy Capitol Hill shoppers already know about the value of quick stop by one of the neighborhood’s student shops. The Seattle Central Bookstore on Broadway is another “secret”.place to check when you need a new pen or a Seattle Central hoodie.

(Image: CHS)

Planning for the Seattle U redesign began after Event Network took over the store’s management last year. Conklin described the store as functioning much more like a boutique now, and the university has worked with the new management to place a heavier emphasis on products that are locally designed and sustainably made and/or created by BIPOC or female-owned brands.

Among the products Conklin was most excited to show off were candles created specifically for the university by a local alumna, Colina Bruce, for her brand Noir Lux Candle Co. The university-inspired candles feature scents of sage, lavender and lemon and cedarwood and sea salt.

Then, there’s the collection by Refried apparel, all made from upcycled fabrics, meaning that each hat or pullover is one of a kind.

There is also a clothing collection designed by Roger Maldonado, owner and founder of Mediums Collective, whose store is just a few blocks away on Pike Street. Maldonado worked with Seattle University’s Resource Amplification & Management Program (RAMP-Up) program, which focuses on working with the city’s BIPOC businesses, to bring their products to the store.

“Not only are you supporting the campus store and the university, you’re buying from a local vendor that might not have been able to have the reach otherwise,” Conklin said.

Seattle University is also hoping to provide the surrounding neighborhood with products that closed stores like Bartell Drugs and Whole Foods once did. Whether it be stopping in to grab a drink or a bag of chips on your lunch break, or buying a stick of toothpaste on your way home, they’ve expanded their offerings to provide more than what you might expect in a university store.

What’s perhaps noticeably absent from the redesigned space are the books. The back corner previously housed a large number of textbooks, but when planning the redesign, the university took into account the changing ways in which students buy reading materials. The amount of in-person textbook shopping has changed so dramatically that when redesigned, much of the space for textbooks was refitted for more retail and public areas.

(Image: CHS)

Now, you can find bean bags and chairs, private tables in cubbies, or even a foosball table and Pac-Man console..

The students now use an online vendor to order textbooks, and can pick them up in-store under a Seattle University marquee modeled after the Paramount Theater.

It has been a period of change for Seattle U. School president Eduardo Peñalver has been named the next leader of Georgetown University and is stepping down. The school’s new Jim and Janet Sinegal Center for Science and Innovation now rises above 12th Ave.

Another major addition to the campus along 12th Ave is also coming. CHS reported here on the planning for SUMA as the Seattle University Museum of Art project has taken shape, powered by a major donation from property developer Dick Hedreen, including his 200-piece, $300 million collection of paintings, pottery, photography, etchings, and sculptures.

Demolition of the Lee Center for the Arts to make way for a new art museum has met backlash over the loss of the performance space.

Peñalver also oversaw Seattle U’s takeover of Cornish College that has seen the university expand to Cornish’s buildings in South Lake Union.

With the changing needs around textbooks and new opportunities around neighborhood retail, the new spin on the store is hoped to better connect this corner of campus to the surrounding neighborhood. The store is kitty corner to a stop on the Rapid G line. Across the street, the recently completed addition for the Seattle Academy of Arts and Sciences stands five stories tall.

“Our values have always been rooted in being in the world,” said Conklin. “To be able to have that mingling between the community and our students is really exciting. That’s what the store is really laid out to be.”

Find the Seattle University Campus Store at 12th and Madison. Learn more at seattleu.edu

$5 A MONTH TO HELP KEEP CHS PAYWALL-FREE

Subscribe to CHS to help us hire writers and photographers to cover the neighborhood. CHS is a pay what you can community news site with no required sign-in or paywall. To stay that way, we need you. Become a subscriber to help us cover the neighborhood for $5 a month -- or choose your level of support 🖤