Big changes are coming to Foothills mall (again)

Editor's note: Coloradoan subscribers can get the first look at new plans for the Foothills shopping center at 6 a.m. Saturday at Coloradoan.com and in Sunday's Coloradoan print edition. To subscribe for as little as $1 for three months of full digital access, visit coloradoan.com/subscribe. Sunday's edition can be purchased for $1.50 at local grocers and other newspaper stands.

Hello, readers.

This is Pat Ferrier.

Big changes are on the horizon at Foothills mall. Again.

I’ve covered business in Fort Collins for nearly 23 years and have been writing about Foothills mall for all of them. Like the community, my hopes rose in 2003 when local developer and owner Bob Everitt sold the property to General Growth Properties, a national mall developer with deep enough pockets to spruce up the then-30-year-old property.

The property languished through the recession under GGP’s ownership, with nothing but false hopes until it sold to Alberta Development/Walton Capital in 2012. Alberta pumped in $313 million to “re-envision” the property, which it did. But it never delivered on its promises to build a thriving center with higher-end stores and restaurants to meet consumers' expectations.

Although the exterior shops have performed well and the Cinemark movie theater continues to be a huge draw, restaurants have come and gone. Large swaths of the interior mall remain unoccupied.

I hope you’ll check out my update on the mall online at Coloradoan.com on Saturday and in our Sunday print edition.

And, as always, thanks for reading the Coloradoan.

— Pat Ferrier, patferrier@coloradoan.com

This article originally appeared on Fort Collins Coloradoan: Big changes are coming to Foothills mall (again)