West Elm set for Thursday opening of new Boulder store

BOULDER — A former Sports Authority store in Boulder will get new life this week, when New York-based retailer West Elm opens an 11,000-square-foot store at the Twenty Ninth Street shopping district.

West Elm sells a mix of furniture, home décor and kitchen items. The new store, which will open Thursday, is slated to employ 30 people. Through the company’s LOCAL program, 10 Colorado-based makers and designers will be able to sell their products with the store’s holiday assortment.

West Elm has stores spread throughout the country, including one in Denver.

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Sports Authority’s S.A. Elite store at Twenty Ninth Street was one of the sporting-goods retailer’s first to close as the company filed for bankruptcy and liquidated all of its stores earlier this year, in a move that left landlords in Boulder, Longmont, Greeley and Fort Collins searching for new tenants.

The S.A. Elite store had occupied 15,000 square feet. The 4,000 square feet left over that West Elm isn’t leasing is now being marketed as office space, said Heather Drake, a spokesperson for Twenty Ninth Street owner Macerich.

The West Elm opening comes amid a flurry of openings at Twenty Ninth Street. The Barrel outdoor shipping-container bar opened in a plaza area near the corner of 29th Street and Canyon Boulevard last week. That followed Zoes Kitchen and My Colorado Store, which both opened earlier this month. Swift Originals and Bentley’s Pet Stuff are also set to open this fall.

Drake said she couldn’t disclose Twenty Ninth Street’s most current occupancy rate. But Macerich’s second-quarter earnings filings indicated that the shopping district was 98.7 percent leased at the end of June.