Retailers take the bait, demographics sets hook

FORT COLLINS – Debbie Tamlin jokes that her knees are bloody from all the begging she’s done trying to attract national retail chains to her company’s mall properties in Fort Collins, Greeley and Cheyenne.

But the real weapon in ZTI Group’s leasing arsenal is information. And lots of it.

“You really gotta know your stuff,” Tamlin said. “You’ve got to understand what they’re trying to market.”

ZTI is a development partner in University Mall, where a massive facelift and reconfiguration project is under way, with the goal of attracting the national retailers that area shoppers say they just can’t live without. But a…