Colorado Real Estate Journal -
Sears Holdings Corp. recently announced it was closing all of its remaining Great Indoors stores, including the one in Lone Tree, near the Park Meadows Mall. The store opened in 1998, the first of what was going to be a chain of well-lit, big-box format stores to provide one-stop shopping for bedding, appliances, and lighting, ceiling fan, kitchen and bath fixtures. Instead, by the time that the Hoffman Estates, Ill.-based retailer decided to pull the plug, the Lone Tree store was one of only nine left in the country. “We decided to end that entire Great Indoors concept,” said Sears spokeswoman Kimberly Freely. “We have not yet determined when the Lone Tree store will be closed.” She said that Sears lists the Lone Tree store as having 155,000 square feet. Douglas County records list it as being slightly bigger, with 159,633 sf. The county, for tax purposes, lists its “actual value” at $11.34 million and estimated it will pay $325,468 in property taxes this year. Christine Harwell, finance director for Lone Tree, said she knows how much sales tax revenues the Great Indoors generates, but it is against state law to reveal that information. Records list the owner of the Great Indoors as Bel Larimer LLC, in care of Boston-based Eaton Vance Management. “We lease that store,” Freely said. Asked how much time remains on the lease, she said: “We would not answer a question like that.” Although the closing of the Great Indoors is sure to leave a big hole in Lone Tree’s finances, retail expert Mary Beth Jenkins said the store’s premium location will be a big selling point for whatever replaces it. “When you talk about big boxes in general, they continue to shrink,” said Jenkins, principal of the Denver-based Laramie Co. “This location, however, will make it very attractive to destination retailers. There are still some that are expanding.” One thing she is wondering is if another retailer will take over the entire building. “Would they need to subdivide the space? I think that the power of this location will be very attractive to another larger-format retailer.” She said categories of retailers that might be interested in taking all of the space include sporting goods, furniture, home goods “and maybe hardware.” She said she doesn’t think it will remain vacant long. Indeed, it is possible that when Sears announces the date it is leaving, another retailer could simultaneously announce it will be replacing the Great Indoors. “Again, I really think it is the strength of that Park Meadows location that will make it so attractive to a big-box tenant. Park Meadows in the dominant retail mall in the area because of its size and its sales per sf. It is much larger than Cherry Creek. The surrounding retail does extraordinarily well, too. The nearby demographics are the best in the Denver area.” She said another possibility would be to scrape it and replace it with another building and possibly another use. “However, I think that would be the second option” because it is so much more expensive than simply re-leasing it. “On one hand, the building opened in 1998 so it is close to the life of its amortization. In this case, the value of that site is the land. It’s the location, not the building. Although the building still has value, the majority of the value is in the land itself. It’s very rare that a site with such close proximity to the dominant mall becomes available. It is a great opportunity for someone to step in.” Jenkins said the city of Lone Tree understands the importance of replacing the revenues that will be lost by Great Indoors. “They are very experienced with working with retailers and understand the importance of sales tax revenues, given that Park Meadows is in Lone Tree.”