September 28, 2012

2000 – FlatIron Crossing soared with area economy

BROOMFIELD —Business was still booming in 2000. Nearly everyone in Boulder County who wanted a job had one, and consumers with healthy bank accounts anxiously awaited the opening of FlatIron Crossing, promised as the premier regional shopping mall north of Denver’s Cherry Creek.

The mall’s story began 16 years before its opening. In 1984, while Boulder County reeled from massive high-tech layoffs and the outlook for the local economy was glum, the city of Broomfield quietly annexed the mall site as a move to expand its fledgling economic base.

A feasibility study in 1988 identified the area adjacent to U.S. Highway 36 and 96th Street as a potential site for the mall. In the early ’90s, the city and the Broomfield Economic Development Council actively began recruiting developers — but then decided to ask retailers who were the developers with whom they would want to work.

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Nordstrom’s head of real estate recommended Phoenix-based Westcor. When officials from Westcor first saw the Broomfield site in 1993, they saw potential, but only that. Two pivotal events in 1996 galvanized Westcor’s commitment to the Broomfield site: The groundbreaking for the 96th Street interchange, and the announcement that Dillard’s and Nordstrom would put their first stores in the Denver metro area in the Park Meadows shopping center, miles south of the Denver Tech Center.

Westcor liked what it saw in Broomfield. The mall would have great access from U.S. 36 because of the new interchange, the city of Broomfield was ready to be an active partner and Interlocken, the technology park that was giving the city an address on the north metro map, was ready to explode. Icing on the cake was the announcement that Sun Microsystems would build a huge campus in the park.

Ground was broken for Flatiron Crossing in 1998. The mall opened in August 2000, wowing customers with its 1.5 million square feet of space and 130 stores. On its opening weekend, it hosted almost a quarter of a million people who spent almost $2 million — probably more because all stores in the mall didn’t report their first weekend sales.

BROOMFIELD —Business was still booming in 2000. Nearly everyone in Boulder County who wanted a job had one, and consumers with healthy bank accounts anxiously awaited the opening of FlatIron Crossing, promised as the premier regional shopping mall north of Denver’s Cherry Creek.

The mall’s story began 16 years before its opening. In 1984, while Boulder County reeled from massive high-tech layoffs and the outlook for the local economy was glum, the city of Broomfield quietly annexed the mall site as a move to expand its fledgling economic base.

A feasibility study in 1988 identified the area adjacent to U.S. Highway…

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