Dell Range boom spurs spinoff development

CHEYENNE – Dell Range Boulevard on Cheyenne’s North Side is the busiest street in Wyoming, thanks to development of Frontier Mall and the scores or retail businesses and restaurants that followed.So busy, in fact, that businesses wanting a piece of the action are turning their sights on the rapidly vanishing prairie on either side of the Dell Range corridor, creating a big market for new Off-Dell Range developments on once sleepy side streets such as Stillwater Avenue, Meadowland Drive and Bluegrass Circle.
South of Dell Range, especially, new clusters of retail businesses and offices are growing quickly, and land that has not been developed yet is prominently listed for sale. The area south of Dell Range is particularly attractive because it borders the northern section of the Cheyenne Greenway and the north edge of the airport, offering an open space buffer.
“Dell Range is pretty well-developed, and they’re trying to get as close as they can,´ said Bob Phillips, who has had a hand in the development of much to the south side of Dell Range, from Applebee’s to Red Lobster, and now is down to his last four acres not under contract.
“Those people who don’t need the tremendous exposure of Dell Range will do well on Stillwater,” Phillips said.
Off-Dell Range South already has Cheyenne’s newest hotel, the Fairfield Inn on the west end of Stillwater Avenue, right behind Applebee’s.
The east end, meanwhile, has long been anchored by professional buildings, such as Dell Range Eye Clinic and the HealthReach medical clinic. The newest addition is the Bluegrass Professional Plaza, an attractive 9,200-square-foot, two-story office building built for Emergency Medical Physicians last year. The first phase was hardly occupied before work started on a second phase completed earlier this summer.
Current occupants include the Emergency Medical Physicians, Cheyenne Family Medicine, Associates in Orthopedics and Cheyenne Radiology and MRI.
In between the Bluegrass professional buildings and the Fairfield is the new home of WyHy Federal Credit Union on Meadowland Drive, and Greenway Commons, an attractive strip mall with arched doorways on Stillwater, just east of the Fairfield.
Greenway Commons has a mix of businesses that includes U.S. Cleaners, Greene Chiropractic, Cornerstone Christian Supply, Frontier Jewelers, Micro Drip and L’Osteria Mondello, a new Italian restaurant owned by the owners of Parkway Pizza, formerly in the Frontier Mall and now located on East Lincolnway.
Other existing businesses in Off-Dell Range South include the Building Center, AAA of Wyoming, Lightning Lube, A&C Feeds, Mingles and the Andrikopoulos and Fort Collins Consolidated Royalties oil and gas leasing office.
“What anchored it was the Building Center,” Phillips said. “People saw that and decided this is as close to Dell Range as they can get.”
At least one more retail/office development is planned by Joe Cherry at the west end, and Neil Emmons of Emmons and Co. is offering land to several prospects, including a restaurant chain.
“We’re not looking at anything specific, but we’ve been presenting it to some people, and we’d like to see something happen,” Emmons said.
Off-Dell Range North has not been developed as extensively, with the exception of the Pointe Frontier Retirement Community, Life Care Center of Cheyenne and two medical clinics at the corner of Prairie Avenue and Powderhouse Road, the northwest corner of the Frontier Mall.
But that likely will change, given its proximity to the mall, discount stores and other Dell Range retail. Much of the land north of the mall is an open field owned by Frank Cole, a longtime Cheyenne developer, and while much of that land is planned for residential development, the area closest to the mall is ripe for commercial development.