Foothills mall remains the region’s biggest

FORT COLLINS — The biggest shopping center in Northern Colorado could have had a much more “country” theme to it if Fort Collins’ rapid growth from a farm hamlet to a more-cosmopolitan community hadn’t changed a few minds early on.

Foothills Fashion Mall, built in 1973, is still the region’s biggest shopping center 28 years after it first opened. At more than 600,000 square feet of leasable space, the popular shopping mecca is more than 20,000 square feet bigger than its nearest competitor, the Greeley Mall, which has about 584,000 square feet of leasable space.

But in those early days back in the late 1960s, when Everitt Enterprises in Fort Collins first acquired the Spencer farm to build the center, some thought it might be best to give it a more farm-oriented tone.

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“We originally thought it would be a farm center, like a Country General, with an implement dealership and things that would appeal to farmers and ranchers,” said Bob Everitt, chairman of the development company.

“It was on the very edge of town at that time, with farms all around,” Everitt recalled. “It’s about in the middle of town now.”

Everitt said representatives of Sears and the Denver Dry Goods Co. had been trying to find a place to build a shopping center in Fort Collins in the late 1960s and contacted the Everitt Cos. for land suggestions.

Working with a group of Denver-based investors and West Corp., an investment company in Phoenix, Everitt came up with a proposal that appealed to the companies. Later, May D&F — principal owners of Foley’s — signed on and bought up Denver Dry Goods. J.C. Penney Co. Inc. was added about 15 years ago, Everitt said, and in 1989 the mall was expanded by about 60,000 square feet and Mervyn’s was added as a fourth major anchor.

Those stores remain the mall’s largest tenants, with Foley’s by far the biggest at 132,000 square feet.

Foothills Fashion Mall has flourished in the last three decades, with nearly all of its space continuously leased. “We’ve probably done better on that than anybody in Northern Colorado,” Everitt said. “We always want to have at least one or two vacancies to have space when our tenants remodel.”

In recent years, small kiosk-type businesses have sprung up in the hallways of the vast center. Everitt said the kiosks often act as a foot in the door to more permanent space in the mall.

“A lot of these people who start out in kiosks end up as permanent tenants,” he said.

Everitt said the mall may get even bigger in the not-too-distant future. Declining to give any details, Everitt said his company has been studying some expansion ideas that would include some kind of structured parking.