Macy’s affordable housing donation approved, project moving forward

BOULDER — Macy’s Inc. (NYSE: M) won approval Tuesday night for the final piece of it’s effort to move forward with it’s long-planned redevelopment of its store in the Twenty Ninth Street shopping area.

The Boulder City Council, as part of its consent agenda, voted to accept a $3 million donation to its affordable housing fund. Macy’s offered to make the payment rather than include affordable housing units in its redevelopment plans. 

Through a process of “adaptive reuse,” Macy’s, with help from Corum Real Estate Group Inc. and Trestle Strategy Group, plans to morph the store into a three-story, roughly 155,000-square-foot office building with about 7,700 square feet of retail space on the ground floor.

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In addition to the $3 million donation, Macy’s has agreed to a covenant that requires the company to provide at least 7,500 square feet of affordable office space at the site.

This element proved somewhat controversial as a clause in the agreement allows Macy’s to stop providing affordable retail should Twenty Ninth Street eventually be redeveloped into something other than primarily shopping-based property — for example, if it were torn down and replaced with offices or homes.

“There are a lot of unknowns, and we’re trying to address as many of those as we can,” said Charlie Smith, an attorney representing Macy’s. It’s “likely,” given the changing retail landscape, that the area could be transformed into some other primary use.

Councilman Mark Wallach was the main opponent of such a clause in the covenant and proposed an amendment that would limit Macy’s ability to enact the clause unless properties within 500 feet were no longer used as retail. This, he said, will stop Macy’s from using the reuse of a property at the opposite end of the mall as an excuse to stop offering affordable retail space.

This amendment was accepted and the covenants setting forth the $3 million donation and affordable retail space was ultimately approved. 

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