Major Greeley Mall tenant At Home moving to Johnstown

GREELEY and JOHNSTOWN — At Home Group Inc. (NYSE: HOM) will move out of the Greeley Mall and to Johnstown next year, marking the second anchor tenant to leave in recent months.

The Plano, Texas-based furniture retailer confirmed to BizWest that it will move to 4900 Thompson Parkway in the JohnsTown Plaza and offer positions to all of its current employees at the Greeley Mall.

“The new store will open in February and is in a more dynamic retail node on the east side of I-25 and Highway 34,” an At Home spokesperson said.

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At Home’s departure leaves Cinemark Holdings Inc. (NYSE: CNK) and Team Tom Gym as the remaining anchor tenants left in the mall. J.C. Penney Co. Inc. vacated its position as an anchor tenant in the mall months ago after the store closed 846 stores nationwide in a bankruptcy reorganization. The retailer also closed its Fort Collins location.

Moonbeam Leasing & Management LLC, the group that owns and operates the mall, did not make a representative available for an interview or responded to requests for comment Thursday and Friday.

The pandemic and the resulting restrictions to prevent the spread of COVID-19 have been a major threat to retailers and the malls across the country that have housed them. At a local level, Fort Collins’ Foothills Mall was revealed to be in default this week.

However, Greeley director of economic health and housing Benjamin Snow said he was optimistic about the future of the mall. He pointed to relatively high occupancy rates before the pandemic, and believes that the open pad sites left from the demolition of the former Sears building, plans for an affordable housing development nearby and the visibility from the highway will lure new retailers to the area.

“I think we just need to be open-minded to what those shifts are going to bring, as opposed to everybody feeling like we’re all going to hell in a handbasket and it’s good night, Sally, it’s over,” he said. “There’s a sort of churn and cycle that goes with real estate, and that matches the churn and cycle of what’s going on in the larger economy. I’m not naive about that the realities, that there’s some rough sledding ahead for a lot of businesses, and there’s some rough sledding ahead for some real estate until it’s until the vision of it being repurposed manifests itself, but the fact that it will manifest itself, I am pretty bullish on.”

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