Best Convenience Retailing Concept: District Market, University of Washington

District Market isn’t just a convenience store, nor a standard grocery store. Instead, it is a full-service gourmet food market that specializes in fresh, healthy and sustainable products, with over half of the fresh produce organic and many of the other products from local sources (including from on campus as much as possible). The latter includes not only produce but meats, seafood and bakery. Located on a heavily trafficked thoroughfare, District Market also offers freshly prepared foods, grab and go and the school’s noted Husky Grind coffees.

District Market replaced what was already a traditional, high-performing c-store (2 Convenient), but one that was deemed inadequate to serve the changing and growing population of UW’s West Campus area, which prefers self-sufficient dining in apartment style living spaces.

Hence, District Market was conceived not only as a store to serve these preferences, but one that could serve as an anchor to the West Campus neighborhood.

The numbers tell the story: an average check of $7.56 as opposed to $4.29 for 2 Convenient, and a jump in both daily transactions  (3,700 vs. 2,450) and annual revenue ($5.7 million vs. $2.9 million).

Project Team:

Pam Schreiber,
Director of Housing & Foodservice
Storm Hodge,
Assistant Director of UW Dining
Rob Lubin,
Associate Director of Facilities
Gabe Kinney,
Executive Chef
Tracey MacRae,
Executive Chef
Jeremiah Trammell,
Administrator, Express Markets & Coffee Roasting
Yung Cheung,
Administrator, Business Operations
Heidi Antush,
Manager, District Market
Mahlum Architects: Architect/Interior Design
Phillips Enterprises, Inc.: Grocery Consultant
Walsh Construction: Construction