Demolition of Dillard’s before court in July

LONGMONT – A plan that will result in the Dillard’s department store at Twin Peaks Mall being torn down is scheduled to be heard in Boulder County District Court the week of July 22.

Elected city officials in Longmont, acting as the Longmont Urban Renewal Authority, plan to take title of the department store for a price set by the court after filing eminent-domain documents against Dillard’s Properties LLC and DSS Uniter Inc., another property owner, on May 17.

Under the district court’s “trailing docket” system, a specific time and day for a court trial will be set the week of July 15, and all parties in the case will be contacted, said Laurie Edwards-Ryer, a court clerk.

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Neither Dillard’s spokeswoman Julie Bull nor city of Longmont spokesman Rigo Leal was immediately available for comment about the latest court filing.

Eminent domain is the term used to describe a government’s legal right to take private property for public use after compensating a property owner. The urban renewal authority previously offered Dillard’s $3.6 million for the store and the land.

The eminent-domain proceedings come after more than a year of negotiations about the building and land between NewMark Merrill Mountain States, which plans an $80 million redevelopment of the current Twin Peaks Mall, and Dillard’s representatives. The development has been renamed Village at the Peaks and is slated to open for the holiday season in 2014.

Dillard’s holds legal veto power over any redevelopment of the property. Longmont’s special counsel in the matter, Robert Duncan, referred legal questions to Longmont city attorney Eugene Mei, who was not immediately available for comment.

The 94,000-square-foot building and land were valued at $3.03 million in a city appraisal conducted in November. A Boulder County Assessor’s Office appraisal assessed the property at $2.935 million for a two-year period ending in June 2012.

The court also must set a price for the building and land, according to the documents. No time frame is laid out in the documents for the compensation amount. A Dillard’s representative has said in the past that the company is seeking $5 million for the property, according to Brad Power, Longmont’s economic development director.

A 100,000-square-foot Sam’s Club discount store and a 30,000-square-foot Whole Foods Market (Nasdaq: WFM) grocery store have signed on to anchor the new shopping center, along with a Regal Entertainment Group 12-screen, 2,500-seat movie theater.

NewMark Merrill paid $8.5 million for the existing 550,000-square-foot mall in February 2012. It is slated for demolition this fall.