Centennial – Plans are in the works to transform the aging and beleaguered Southglenn Mall into a sleek, urban, outdoor shopping center, featuring residential lofts.
Much of the old mall is scheduled to be flattened next spring to make way for The Streets at Southglenn, developers and city officials confirmed Thursday
The project would incorporate a European-style urban design, up to 350 residential lofts, office space, a gourmet natural-foods market, a cineplex, European bistros, sidewalk cafes and women’s and men’s apparel stores.
Anchor retailers Sears and Foley’s, soon to be renamed Macy’s, would remain open but receive a face-lift while the redevelopment is underway.
The new open-air mall would resemble the Belmar Center in Lakewood. Its projected opening is spring 2008.
“It would really be the new urbanist type of shopping area that you’d see in Paris or London, where someone can shop for shoes, take in a casual or gourmet dinner and see a movie,” Mayor Randy Pye said. “The entire concept is something the community is anxious for and ready to embrace.”
The project will be a joint venture of the mall’s owner, Walton St. Capital of Chicago, and Greenwood Village-based Alberta Development Partners, which also constructed Southlands, a 1.6 million-square-foot retail center in Aurora.
“I truly believe it’s one of the top five sites for a mall redevelopment in the nation,” said Don Provost, principal of Alberta Development Partners. “Nationally, there is anywhere from 500 to 750 malls that … are classified as needing to be redeveloped. We consider ourselves very fortunate to create this great urban place in the suburbs.”
Redevelopment cost projections are still being formulated, but The Streets at Southglenn would have an estimated value of $250 million, and it’s expected to be publicly and privately financed, officials say.
The project, however, hinges on Centennial’s approval of the formation of a metropolitan district and an urban-renewal plan to allow for the sharing of sales and property taxes that would be pledged to repay bonds issued to finance certain development costs. The City Council is scheduled to hold a hearing on the metropolitan district Monday night.
City leaders were presented with the development idea at a study session last week, and the project is expected to move rapidly, which was a little unsettling for Councilwoman Betty Ann Habig.
“It feels like we’re embarking on what’s going to be a very fast and furious process,” Habig said. “I’m a little bit uncomfortable with the speed that this is coming at council.”
Still, everyone agrees that something must be done with Southglenn Mall, which has seen its share of economic hardships from asbestos contamination in the late 1980s to a steady decline in customers and vendors.
In 2000, the mall made up 20 percent of the city’s total sales- tax revenue. Last year, the number had dwindled to 12 percent after the loss of J.C. Penney and smaller stores, city officials say. Abercrombie & Fitch was the most recent store to jump ship, Pye noted.
Southglenn has suffered since the construction of nearby Park Meadows mall and the multimillion-dollar renovation of Southwest Plaza in unincorporated Jefferson County.
“This mall was not in decline as much as the writing was on the wall that it was in need of repositioning,” said Mary Beth Jenkins, a retail broker with The Laramie Co. in Denver, who advises cities and owners on whether a mall should be saved.
The redevelopment plan follows a national trend toward the construction of so-called shopping districts that integrate department stores, big-box retailers and smaller specialty merchants, Jenkins said.
Similar projects being developed in the metro area include Larkridge in Thornton and The Orchard Town Center in Westminster. Existing malls also have tapped into the trend; most notably, Lakewood’s Villa Italia was converted into Belmar Center – a Main Street-style mix of shops, offices and housing.
Developers are confident in the prospects for Southglenn, largely because the site is at one of the metro area’s busiest intersections, University Boulevard and Arapahoe Road, and is surrounded by neighborhoods where household incomes exceed $100,000.
“All of the stores in Southglenn Mall now can be found at Park Meadows or Southwest Plaza,” Pye said. “We’re going to try to bring in new retailers not already in the marketplace so that shoppers aren’t having to choose between Park Meadows and The Streets at Southglenn.”
Staff writer Kristi Arellano contributed to this report.
Staff writer Manny Gonzales can be reached at 303-820-1173 or mgonzales@denverpost.com.
