Retailers Click To Brick And Are Moving Into The Mall; Outdoor Shops Trading Storefronts For Mall Across Street
by Glen Richardson
Seemingly in a downward spiral following the addition of paid parking, the Cherry Creek Shopping Center is making a comeback.
As the New Year was getting underway General Manager Nick LeMasters disclosed that, “every single space in the mall is either occupied, under negotiation or under construction.” Unfazed by e-commerce and aided by developers and contractors choking retailers out of Cherry Creek North, LeMasters now says, “We are effectively full.”
As business stages a comeback, the shopping center is making capital investments to keep the momentum on an upward curve. For starters, the mall is installing solar panels on the roof along its western side. LeMasters says the project is nearly complete and will likely be turned on next month (March). “Because of the predominance of the sun in Denver — 300 days of sunshine — we’re going to be effectively powering half of the common-area energy supply with these solar panels,” he says. “It will reduce our overhead significantly, and it’s the right thing to do,” he points out.
Jumping Into Mall
Biggest news as 2019 got underway is that French luxury brand Hermes will begin construction of a 5,000-sq.-ft. space within the mall early this year. Expected to open in 2020, the mall store will replace the company’s standalone site across the street at 105 Fillmore St.
The upscale retailer will be placed next to similar shops, such as Louis Vuitton, Tiffany & Co. and Tory Burch, according to LeMasters. “Hermes is the personification of luxury, and luxury retailers want to be next to other luxury retailers,” he notes. “To be next to other luxury retailers, there’s spin-off business. They tend to complement each other more than compete with each other.”
Opening in late November, North Face also moved into the mall from its former Cherry Creek North location at 100 Detroit St. The retailer now has 5,000-sq. ft. in the lower level of the mall, near Nordstrom. The space used to be part of the jewelry company Tiffany and Co. that relocated within the mall. The move followed the announcement that the North Face’s central office is moving to Denver from San Francisco as part of parent company VF Corp.’s headquarters relocation.
More Making Leap
Hermes and North Face aren’t the only Cherry Creek North retailers who have recently moved into the shopping center. Jewelry maker Alex and Ani made the jump to the mall from 2827 E. 3rd Ave. Earlier this year women’s apparel store White House Black Market relocated to the mall from Cherry Creek North’s Clayton Lane. Also, Lucy Activewear closed its store on Clayton Lane and was folded into North Face now located in the mall. Plus A Pea in the Pod moved across 1st Ave. into the mall.
New additions to the Cherry Creek Shopping Center at year’s end included San Francisco- based candy shop Lolli and Pops, as well as several businesses that started as Internet retailers. Companies that started in the mall as popup operations and now have their own stores there include mattress maker Casper and stationary bike company Peloton.
Two major retailers — Macy’s Furniture Gallery and The Container Store — relocated within the shopping center, moving from the west to the east side of the mall. Macy’s Furniture Gallery is now adjacent to Macy’s Department Store. The re-imagined Container Store features an open layout plus a Custom Closet Design Center. The two stores built out in the space previously housing Rite Aid and Safeway.
Luring New Brands
The Shopping Center has recently lured several new brands. The Casper store allows customers to schedule a 30-minute “sleep trial” on a Casper mattress in one of the company’s makeshift bedrooms. Peloton opened a showroom at the mall in 2017 where potential buyers can demo the company’s stationary bikes. And Amazon has a pop-up store at the shopping center, where consumers can play around with its Fire tablets and Alexa smart-home devices.
Untuckit — a men’s apparel brand that sells shirts designed to wear untucked — is also opening a store in the shopping center, reveals LeMasters. “They’re going to start construction relatively soon,” he adds. “I think we’re going to see them in the first quarter of 2019.” Launched in 2011, its shirts are shorter than the typical men’s dress shirt. After four years as an entirely online retailer, the brand’s first brick-and-mortar store opened in 2015 in New York’s SoHo district.
“It’s interesting to see this trend that’s emerging with these native online brands that are recognizing the importance of brick-and-mortars,” LeMasters observes. “These brands were thought to be a threat to brick-and-mortar retail, but they’re clearly going to have the opposite effect.”
Stores, Theatre Updating
To encourage tenants to update their looks, LeMasters says the shopping center now offers leases shorter than the 10-year industry standard and builds “midterm remodel” language into its leases.
“We’ve found that a lot of retailers want to renovate,” LeMasters said. “They’re rolling out stores all the time and as they do so, they evolve their concept and their presentation.” Pandora is an example of a store in the midst of a midterm remodel.
More: AMC Theatres — an original tenant of the mall — is upgrading its look in 2019, which LeMasters called overdue. “Today’s moviegoer expects an upscale experience,” he says. “Our customers love the convenience of this particular theater, but it hasn’t kept pace with others in the market. It will have a completely new and upscale feel to it.”
Space Shuffle, New Stores
Stores are also getting moved around in the mall in the hopes of boosting sales. For example, LensCrafters soon will move to a different storefront in the mall, and a new retailer — which LeMasters declined to disclose — will take its place.
The year-end addition of Zara, a popular European outfitter, also required rearranging, so Brooks Brothers and Express both moved into different mall locations. Zara has taken up 38,000-sq. ft., making it the largest non-department store in the mall.
LeMasters says the mall will continue to look for emerging retail categories to bring in, such as e-commerce brands adding brick-and-mortar stores and not just selling online. Casper, Peloton and Amazon are examples of such businesses now in the Cherry Creek Shopping Center.
Making Mall Leap: The standalone Hermes store at 1st and Fillmore in Cherry Creek North will begin construction of a 5,000-sq.-ft. space in the Shopping Center early this year. The French luxury brand expects to open the mall store in 2020 to replace the site across the street.
