Westlake Plaza

Westlake Plaza with its signature clock tower.

Westlake Plaza Shopping Center is a West Davis shopping center. It was formerly known as Farm Town Center. The new Westlake IGA Market now anchors the shopping center.

The City of Davis General Plan of May 2001, Section IV, Chapter 1, encourages "shopping opportunities to meet Davis residents' daily needs in areas conveniently located to each neighborhood. The city supports many smaller neighborhood commercial centers each at a focal point instead of fewer larger centers."

Westlake stores provide a wide range of services to West Davis residents. Westlake was built by Al Smith who reportedly came to Davis in the early 1970's via Beverly Hills. Purportedly, he proceeded to invest (and lose) his entire inheritance in the building of Stonegate Country Club, Stonegate subdivision, and Westlake Shopping Center. Unfortunately, Mr. Smith did not profit from his vision. He seems to be a man ahead of his times, as this area of West Davis continues to be one of the most well planned and sought after neighborhoods in Davis. Stonegate also boasts a wide range of housing types and sizes unlike the newer additions of Mace Ranch and Wildhorse subdivisions.

The Westlake Plaza is served by the Unitrans D and K lines on Lake Boulevard and on Arlington, and by the P/Q bus line on Arlington.

A non-profit group, Davis Advocates for Neighborhood Groceries (DANG), was formed to coordinate efforts to locate full-service grocery store in the Westlake Plaza Shopping Center. A petition urging the City Council not to allow the center landlord to convert most of the former market space to offices garnered more than 1,000 signatures of local residents. Read more about the group's activities at their website.

Stores in Westlake Plaza include:

• AMD Medical Supply Stethoscopes, scrubs & accessories for healthcare professionals, compression garments, wheelchairs, walkers, bath chairs, hospital beds, lift chairs,etc.
  

• Aaranna Hair Design
  

• Abba Salon and Spa
  

• Chuy's Taqueria
  

• Curves
  

• Davis Airporter
  

• Davis Christian Bookroom
  

• Feldspar Pet Spa
  

• Lamppost Pizza
  

• Modern Nails
  

• S&S Computer Repair
  

• Shanghai Town
  

• Soap City Laundromat
  

• Star Cleaners
  

• Stonegate Video (actually Stonegate Cafe and Video, a video rental store, bakery and java bar all-in-one)
  

• U-Haul Rental
  

• Westlake IGA Market opened Jan. 15, 2010

I went to a meeting tonight at Stonegate Country Club about new stuff going into the grocery space in this shopping center. A smaller grocery store is planned and the rest of the space will be filled by more retail on the Arlington side and offices in the back. I said at the meeting that I thought there should be a 24 hour donut or coffee shop because people already go to Java California in Dixon. Apparently alot of the Stonegate people don't want a 24 hour place, so it would be great if more people who would also like that could come to future meetings about this development. I put my name and address on their list, so I should receive future announcements, and will put them here. —NickSchmalenberger

Please do, Nick. I live right next door to the shopping center and it's felt kinda lifeless since Food Fair (for all it's faults...) left. Did this meeting specify a timeline for adding new businesses to the center? —StacieTownsend

An indoor velodrome would be cool here. The building probably isn't big enough, but it could be. —MischaGushiken

There is currently (April 2008) a petition in the coffee shop (Stonegate Video) asking the council to reserve that space for grocery stores only, and not to split the space into smaller lots for other retail businesses and offices. Any residents (and possibly anyone? I don't know how it works) should go sign the petition if they want larger grocery stores to come into the area. —ElleWeber

I have been to several of the meetings at Stonegate Country Club about this space and it is clear to me the reason why it has been empty so long is that the Stonegate residents are much too demanding. I have lived around there, east of the shopping center for all my life and shopped at Farmtown, Rays, and Food Fair. Many people at the meetings said Food Fair was not good, but I was always very happy with the service and the employees were very nice. However, space and goods both cost money so to have more of both there will need to be alot more money coming in. That probably isn't going to happen unless something like the West Village gets developed because more development north of West Davis will find it easier to go to Safeway. I was also at one of the meetings for West Village, and again, the West Davis residents were much too demanding. At the first meeting I went to at the Country Club, the owners of Food Fair were there talking about their new plans. When it came out that they had run Food Fair many in the audience became angry because they were so unsatisfied with Food Fair (not me), and the Food Fair people were not at the second meeting I went to. Sad. The only Stonegate Resident who actually had experience running a grocery store at the meeting was Al Smith, and he blamed Safeway and its violation of the Davis grocery store zoning laws for Farmtown and later stores failure. His accusation was true, but also long in the past, so now somebody needs to have a store that complements Safeway and will be sustainable by the customers it would get in that location. The proposals for this have been rejected and the property owner has been criticized for all sorts of things about the upkeep of the center, when the real issue is there is no grocery store there because of the high expectations of the very same complainants. How much worse could the proposals be than the present state? —NickSchmalenberger

Please don't buy into the landlord's "something is better than nothing" fallacy. Visit the davisdang.org http://www.davisdang.org website and read the FAQ's. A creative solution is out there. Communities all across the country, working together, are discovering them nearly every day. —russellsnyder

It would be awesome if there was a Trader Joes here. I think that would complement the rest of the grocery stores in Davis. —jackson

• According to City staff and the landlord (at a Planning Commission meeting in January 2008) Trader Joe's has been asked about this site and turned it down. It really doesn't fit the site selection criteria they use for most of their dozens & dozens of California stores, IMO. —DougWalter

Delano's IGA of San Rafael, California has announced that they are going to open a new grocery store. http://www.delanomarkets.com/

• Seriously?! Hurray! —vladthedestroyer