Aurora’s struggling Buckingham Square mall will be bulldozed as part of a redevelopment deal reached with Englewood developer Miller Weingarten Realty LLC.
The company has signed on with the mall’s owners to redevelop the site as an outdoor retail center that also could include homes. The project would start after the Dillard’s department store leaves Buckingham Square for a new location in the Town Center at Aurora, formerly Aurora Mall. Dillard’s is expected to relocate in fall 2006.
Buckingham Square joins a national trend that has seen aging indoor malls converted to outdoor shopping areas. Locally, Lakewood’s Villa Italia mall was developed into the Belmar shopping district. Plans for a similar redevelopment are underway at Southglenn Mall in Centennial.
Miller Weingarten has not submitted its plans to the city. But officials Monday said they’re eager to see the aging mall at East Mississippi Avenue and South Havana Street revived.
“It’s a very outdated mall,” said Bob Watkins, Aurora’s director of planning. “It’s pretty obvious if you go out there that there are lot of vacancies in the smaller stores. It’s not well-suited for the needs of the neighborhood or for revitalizing the corridor.”
Buckingham Square has seen its fortunes steadily decline as Aurora’s growth has shifted to the south and east. Many national chains have abandoned the mall, leaving local retailers interspersed among empty storefronts.
Besides Dillard’s, the center will lose a second of three anchors in February when Mervyn’s leaves as part of a companywide pullout from the Front Range.
Buckingham’s remaining anchor – a Target store that is on mall property but not physically connected to the mall – is a relatively new entrant that will remain.
The mall figures heavily into the city’s plan to revitalize Havana Street between East Dartmouth Avenue and East Sixth Avenue. City leaders envision the Buckingham Square site as one of two activity centers along the corridor. They believe Miller Weingarten’s plans for outdoor retail would likely fit that vision.
The project will probably include elements of so-called “lifestyle centers” that group stores and restaurants in a walkable outdoor environment, said John Loss, executive vice president for Miller Weingarten.
The company may consider a phase of residential development on the 60-acre site later, said Loss, development director for the project.
“The market is ultimately going to drive what’s there,” he said.
The company is apt to request some form of public financing for the project, which Loss estimated will require $50 million to $60 million to develop.
“It is our belief that, in almost all cases, a major urban-renewal project needs some public involvement,” he said.
Aurora has previously offered tax subsidies to the mall’s owners for redevelopment.
The site’s owners include the Hayutin family of Denver-based Weststar Management Corp., real-estate investor Sherman Dreiseszun and the Morgan banking family, the latter two of Kansas. Dreiseszun declined to comment on the plan, saying he was unfamiliar with it. Messages to Weststar were not returned Monday.
Staff writer Kristi Arellano can be reached at 303-820-1902 or karellano@denverpost.com.
