Five years after a developer then called McWhinney Real Estate Services Inc. bought Foothills mall out of foreclosure and 3½ years after it announced an ambitious plan to turn the indoor mall into open-air retail and adding housing, office space and walkable outdoor spaces, the company now called Realberry submitted its design concept Thursday to Fort Collins city planners — with two notable changes.
The redevelopment plan got a boost in mid-May thanks to the $60 million Realberry made by selling off outlying retail properties along College Avenue to a pair of real-estate investors.
“Following the successful lease-up and sale of the College Avenue Shops earlier this year, Realberry and Prism Places have submitted an initial concept for the next phase of Foothills Mall, which is focused on transforming the enclosed mall into an outdoor lifestyle destination with more open-air opportunities, landscaping, inviting gathering areas and a stronger mix of places to shop, dine and spend time,” Clyde Wood, Realberry’s vice president for commercial and mixed-use development, said in an email to BizWest. “The concept builds on the direction we shared with the community in 2023 and represents an early step toward bringing that vision to life.
“We believe this approach offers the strongest long-term path for the property, and we are in preliminary discussions with potential anchor users who could help build the leasing momentum needed to move forward.
Wood cited two major differences between Thursday’s presentation to the city and what was presented to the public in 2023.
“The biggest difference is that Realberry is no longer considering demolishing half the mall and the former Macy’s space,” Wood said. “While the team is still evaluating the demolition of select areas to make room for one or more new structures, the current plan is to repurpose most of the existing mall.
“The updated proposal also no longer includes additional uses like housing or office space, which were part of the 2023 concept.”
That concept is still evolving, Wood said.
“The concept will evolve through design, leasing and the city review process, and realizing the vision will require City Council approval,” he said. “We intend to work closely with existing tenants to integrate them into the future project and, to the extent possible, keep occupied portions of the mall open during construction. We look forward to working with the City, tenants and community and will share more details as plans advance.”
One issue Wood raised Thursday that will need City Council approval is its request to amend the metropolitan district service agreement to increase the term of the mill levy so more can be borrowed against it. According to the district’s current service plan and redevelopment agreement, the maximum debt service mill levy is capped at 50 mills.
Joshua Birks, executive director of the Fort Collins Urban Renewal Authority, told BizWest in June that, beginning around February 2025, the company requested that the City Council consider an amendment to the metro district service plan that would have extended the number of years it could issue debt and collect a portion of the metro-district mills related to debt service.
In the narrative submitted to city planners Thursday, Realberry said its plan is to “transform a traditional enclosed mall into a vibrant open-air lifestyle center” through “adaptive reuse of existing structures and a playful design aesthetic inspired by nature.”
It wrote that “the transformation will convert enclosed corridors into landscaped paseos, introduce new building facades that engage shared plazas, and create spaces designed for lingering rather than just passing through.”
The result, it wrote, “will be a thriving and sustainable community landmark that delivers the economic and fiscal benefits long envisioned for this important midtown district.”
Wood last summer expressed optimism that the sale of the outlying properties would help Realberry kickstart plans for the main shopping facility itself.
“The sale of the College Avenue Shops at Foothills Mall reflects the progress we’ve made in positioning the property for long-term success, including strengthening tenancy and overall performance,” Wood said. “This was a natural point to transition the asset.
“Fort Collins and the broader Northern Colorado market have continued to show strong momentum across the retail and mixed-use landscape, and we see meaningful opportunity in the region,” Wood said. “We look forward to working with the new owners of the Shops toward a unified vision that positions the overall Foothills district as the premier shopping, dining and entertainment destination in the region.”
Those new owners are CenterSquare Investment Management, based in Conshohocken, Pennsylvania, and Spark Properties Group, based in Oklahoma City.
CenterSquare paid $52 million for the buildings that house businesses including Aspen Dental, Athleta, Birdcall, Carter’s, CAVA, Chico’s, Crumbl, Cyclebar, DreamMaker Bath & Kitchen, European Wax Center, Fidelity Investments, J. Jill, Jinya Ramen Bar, LensCrafters, Lululemon, Modern Market, NailBar & Co., Nekter Juice Bar, Nothing Bundt Cakes, Shake Shack, Skechers, T-Mobile, Torchy’s Tacos, Verizon, Ulta Beauty, Xfinity and YogaPod.
Spark Properties paid $8 million to acquire buildings that house Nordstrom Rack and Ross Dress for Less.
Realberry still owns the main indoor mall, the former Macy’s and Cinemark Bistro. It also still owns outlying buildings housing Agave Underground, Bad Daddy’s Burger Bar, Smok Barbecue, as well as buildings between the mall and Foothills Parkway that house businesses including the former C.B. & Potts restaurant and Color Me Mine pottery-painting studio.
The metro district owns the parking garage and “great lawn” area, while the City of Fort Collins owns the Foothills Activity Center.
The Loveland-based company then called McWhinney partnered in 2021 with Venice, California-based investment firm Prism Places Inc. to buy the mall and outlying buildings for $45 million from Walton Foothills Holdings IV, a holding company owned by Chicago-based private-equity firm Walton Street Capital and Greenwood Village-based Alberta Development Partners.
Anchor department stores such as Sears and JCPenney were alive and well when Everitt Enterprises opened Foothills Fashion Mall in 1973 in a part of Fort Collins that was then more the edge of town than midtown. As late as 2001, the mall was still the region’s biggest retail draw with nearly all spaces leased.
Everitt sold the mall in 2003 to Chicago-based real-estate investment trust General Growth Properties, then the nation’s second-largest owner of shopping centers.
But by 2005, signs of change were already in the wind as McWhinney opened the open-air Promenade Shops at Centerra, and Foothills’ owners began thinking about a makeover of the mall to keep pace. By 2008, those hopes were dashed amidst the Great Recession when a lease with prospective anchor Dillard’s department stores evaporated, several existing stores pulled out, and debt-ridden General Growth’s stock lost 99% of its value. It filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection the next year.
In 2010, a team of consultants hired by the city of Fort Collins concluded that somehow bringing in Dillard’s as an additional anchor would be necessary to spur any redevelopment of the mall and the rebirth of the entire Midtown Corridor. The study, completed by ELS Architecture and Urban Design, Economic Planning Systems and Warren Wilson Advisors, warned that “the mall’s condition is precarious and action is required soon. Modest improvements are unlikely to achieve long-term success. The best approach for long-term viability and improvement is through significant redevelopment.”
Alberta and Walton Street bought the failing mall in 2012, and the next year worked out a pact with the city of Fort Collins on a $53 million financing package — but soon the developers blamed the city’s delays in making decisions for threatening their ability to launch the project, and costs rose as the complicated public-private partnership encountered one snag after another, made worse by a slow rate of leasing. The Fort Collins City Council had tied the public financing package to leasing benchmarks to ensure that the $313 million redevelopment project was at least half full by the time the renovated mall reopened in 2015.
Ground was finally broken for the redevelopment of the enclosed mall and an adjoining outdoor space in 2014 after months of delay, and a gala reopening was held in November 2015. By the next year, however, city officials were expecting to collect only about half of the $8.6 million in sales tax revenue they’d projected for Foothills, in part because only 63% of the mall’s retail space had been leased.
Alberta had promised Foothills would be “a thriving, vibrant retail and community experience for many years to come” with “unique-to-market retailers and restaurants, state-of-the-art entertainment, and indoor and outdoor gathering spaces.”
But it wasn’t. Nearly 20% of the indoor mall’s spaces were never filled, and it was placed in foreclosure and receivership when it fell behind on what remained of a $150 million construction loan.
When McWhinney announced its redevelopment plans in 2023, Wood told BizWest that “this is a fundamentally different project. This is not just another mall renovation. You need to un-mall. You need to de-mall this site.”
The plan as outlined by Wood in 2023 included reducing Foothills’ amount of retail by about 30% to 440,000 square feet, which included the existing pads along College Avenue that Realberry has now sold. It includes building 750 total residential units, including about 120 apartments located above retail spaces, as well as townhome-style units, some of which would be geared toward residents age 55 and older. They envisioned 70,000 square feet of office space that creates more of a daytime population that helps to drive the retail businesses.
