Urban Entertainment Centers (UEC's) were a product of fascination to developers in the 1990's, a formulized and often a branded approach to creating privately-owned gathering places that featured themed retail, restaurants, clubs, and entertainment.
Urban Entertainment Center developers such as Universal Studios (CityWalk), Sony (Metreon), and Disney (Downtown Disney, Pleasure Island) sought to create gathering places of out-of-home entertainment that would integrate town squares, pocket parks, retail shops, movie theaters, clubs, and tenant businesses.
The development of Universal Studios CityWalk in the Los Angeles area, created perhaps the largest sustained buzz that the retail real estate industry has seen. This was due to retail developers embracing the notion that Universal Studios, Sony, Disney, and other entertainment companies could create new anchors and entertainment programs for shopping centers. Developers never got the product they wanted, as entertainment companies saw bricks-and-mortar investment in such anchors as non-strategic at a time when buzz from Internet investment was underway.
1993 - Universal CityWalk Hollywood opens at Universal Studios Hollywood, connecting the Cineplex Odeon multi-screen cinema, Universal Amphitheatre, and the main entrance of Universal Studios Hollywood theme park. Universal Studios CityWalk Hollywood inspires a series of "urban entertainment center" products from SONY, Warner Bros. and Disney.
1999 - SONY Metreon opens, an "urban entertainment center" located in downtown San Francisco. It is a four-story 350,000 square foot building built over the corner of the underground Moscone convention center. SONY Metreon is the first of a proposed chain of SONY urban entertainment centers aggregating dining, games, music, exhibitions, shopping, and movies. SONY ends up selling Metreon in 2006.
