First & Main Town Center comes of age
Becky Hurley
Colorado Springs Business Journal, Nov. 25, 2005
Seven years ago, Fred Veitch, vice president of Nor’Wood Development Group, told the Realtor Commercial and Industrial Society about a planned 138-acre retail development in the city’s northeast quarter.
He said that the project would include big box retailers, a grocery store, restaurants and a 17-screen megaplex theater.
“You might spend half a day there,” he said.
Today with more than 40 tenants, First & Main Town Center, the shopping sensation that kicked off with the opening of a grocery-anchored 27-acre center at Powers and Constitution and Lowe’s Home Improvement in 1999, approaches retail maturity.
Veitch said that more than 350,000 people live in the shopping center’s primary trade area, earning an average $73,757 in annual income.
The process has hardly been a slam-dunk however. “Admittedly we had a lot to learn about the retail business,” Veitch said.
Previously, Nor’Wood was known primarily for its housing communities located east of Union Boulevard and South of Woodmen Road.
Gregory Stoffel of Gregory Stoffel & Associates of Irvine, Calif., was hired in the late 1990s to provide retail development strategies and feasibility studies for the fledgling project.
“What first occurred to me was that Colorado Springs was underserved by quality retail,” he said, adding that Academy Boulevard never achieved the desired image. “That’s one thing that really distinguishes what Nor’Wood has done.”
Stoffel said that attention to architectural consistency, a “sense of place”, the signature clock tower and convenient access sets First & Main apart from surrounding inline centers.
Special parking meters across from the entrance to the theater complex are generating thousands of dollars that will be donated to School District 49 and other community organizations on behalf of the center’s retailers.
Stoffel finds Colorado Springs a compelling market, but said an idea as big as First & Main required more time than similar projects to germinate.
He also sees the advent of residential construction by owners of the Banning Lewis Ranch as icing on the trade area cake, adding thousands of potential customers for the center during the next five to 15 years.
“It felt a little ‘green’ in 1999 to break ground on such an ambitious development,” Stoffel said, “but the company brought together an outstanding team with experience from other markets to make it successful.”
The center’s first retailer, Lowe’s Home Improvement Warehouse, announced it would build a 150,000-square-foot facility on 14.7 acres at First & Main in February 2000. A year later, the $15 million building opened and has been among the company’s top-performing stores nationally, Veitch said.
Since then, dozens of corporate stores and franchise operations opened on the center’s fertile merchandising soil.
“Our growth has been exponential since we opened three years ago. We’re turning heads at the corporate level,” said Justin Squires of Chick-Fil-A.
Jason Knight, manager of a Game Stop store agrees. “We’ve been here for at least two years, and I would estimate our business has doubled from the first year to the second,” he said.
Veitch said that Ross Dress for Less, Fox & Hound Restaurant, Dress Barn, Honey Baked Ham and Wahoo’s Fish Tacos are preparing to break ground in early 2006. T.J. Maxx and More is under construction; Panera Bread and Old Chicago opened new restaurants in November 2005; and prototype eatery Rock Bottom Brewery, will open before the end of the year.
Next on the drawing board, in what Veitch called First & Main South, is Itz, a 55,000-square-foot family entertainment center that will include themed dining, an indoor roller coaster, bumper cars and more.
“The north east part of town has been under-served by family recreational enterprises,” he said.
A search also is under way for a full-service hotel to fill the space adjacent to the center, with access off Tutt Boulevard.
Veitch sees nothing but positives ahead for First and Main Town Center – except for a pending Colorado Department of Transportation decision to turn Powers Boulevard into a freeway.
That would allow more than 100,000 cars to move along Powers Boulevard, removing stop lights at key intersections and adding a handful of exits onto frontage roads.
The shift from the current expressway means existing stores and restaurants could lose visibility and direct access.
CDOT Southern Colorado Project Engineer, David Poling said the project has been delayed because of lack of funding, but is still a priority. An environmental assessment is under way and public meetings on the issue will resume by mid-2006.
Prime property along Powers sells for $20 a square foot, so the state will be faced with costly land acquisition for right of ways and exits.
“It will cost as much as $18 million for a nine-acre and a 12-acre parcel located adjacent to Nor’Wood’s current First & Main Town Center and its Woodmen and Powers retail-zoned property,” Veitch said. “They just don’t have the budget for that. By the time they’re ready to go, we’ll be leased-up anyway, so why would CDOT want to drive a stake into the heart of its tax base?”
More than $100 million in land and development costs have gone into the project since its inception, Veitch said, and much of that investment has often gone to local companies.
Some of those include Mallon Development Co., Jim Nass Land Planning, Yergensen, Obering & Whitaker architects, Colorado Structures Inc., Christofferson Commercial Builders, Rice & Rice, Frazee Construction, Eric Marquardt Electrical, LaFarge and Rocky Mountain Asphalt, and Rockwell Consultants.
“They’ve all cranked out a lot of work,” Mallon said, “Always under pressure of deadlines, especially with the increase in new tenants we’re seeing.”
He also credits representatives of the gas and electric departments at Colorado Springs Utilities as “almost part of the team.”
Build-out at First & Main is anticipated to by the end of 2008 or early 2009 and will encompass approximately 1.3 million square feet of retail space.
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