Foothills Mall saga: Planned makeover evaporates

FORT COLLINS – Foothills Mall general manager Cynthia Eichler began 2008 as she had 2007 and 2006, with high hopes that a much talked-about redevelopment proposal would resurrect the out-of-date retail center and give it new, 21st-century life.

General Growth Properties Inc. (NYSE: GGP), the Chicago-based real estate investment trust that owns Foothills and 240 other mall properties, had once again assured the mall’s staff, retail leaseholders and city officials who had negotiated incentives for the plan that the time was nearly at hand.

But by April, Eichler’s hopes were dashed, along with those of others who had huge stakes in Foothills’…