The University of Mary Washington Foundation has announced the names of the first four businesses that have signed leases to open in the new section of Eagle Village. All four businesses are locally owned and include new businesses Blackstone Coffee and Pancho Villa Express, as well as returning businesses Quiznos and Lee’s Cleaners, according to Jeff Rountree, CEO of the University of Mary Washington Foundation and president of Eagle Property Holdings.
Blackstone Coffee opened its first store in Spotsylvania in 2008. The new store will be a European-style coffee house offering fresh, imported beans roasted by owner Don Merritt. He also will serve some food items including New York bagels, French baguette sandwiches and a selection of homemade pastries at the new location.
“In the surveys that we conducted both on campus and in the local community, the need for a great coffee house was the top request that we received,” Rountree said. What attracted me to Blackstone were the owner’s reverence for the coffee bean and his passion for hand-selecting raw beans from around the globe and then roasting them in his store before brewing coffee for his patrons. That is the kind of quality we were looking for.”
The first Pancho Villa Mexican restaurant opened its doors in 1993 in Culpeper, Va., and additional stores can be found in the area. Pancho Villa Express will offer a “Fresh-Mex” concept with an open kitchen and grill and a special custom margarita bar for patrons of age.
“We were fortunate to have several Mexican-style restaurants vying for space at Eagle Village, but we liked the quality of Eladio Pacheco’s food the best, and I like the fact that he is a self-made man from Culpeper who has created a regional grouping of highly successful fresh Mexican restaurants. He and his marketing staff also clearly understood the need to create a hybrid restaurant that would serve both the Fredericksburg community as well as the university community,” Rountree said.
Both Blackstone and Poncho Villa will face U.S. Route 1 and will have large outdoor cafes for al fresco dining on their own private terraces.
“We also are delighted to welcome back Lee’s Cleaners and Quiznos,” said Rountree. “I think their commitment to returning to this location adjacent to the university speaks highly of the opportunities they see in locating here.”
The UMW Foundation is continuing to negotiate lease agreements with several new businesses that will be locating in Eagle Village. The names of those businesses will be announced as final leases are signed, Rountree said.
The UMW Foundation is developing Eagle Village as a mixed-use village in the former Park & Shop retail center that will include an apartment-style residence complex with 156 apartments, office, retail and restaurant facilities, and a multi-level parking garage. The project is on schedule, and the retail and office sections of the development were ready for tenant build-out beginning this week. Offices and storefronts will open to the public when the business owners complete their construction, which is expected to be in the August through November timeframe.
Eagle Landing, the student residential section, is on schedule and will open to students in August. The University of Mary Washington announced at the end of March that Eagle Landing was a sellout. The 654-bed facility will be completely filled when university students return in the fall, and a waiting list has been formed for students who were unsuccessful in securing a room at Eagle Village during housing selection.
