Mall votes: Monday results in, Tuesday’s to come

FORT COLLINS — McWhinney and Prism Places continue the start of a public discussion on the future of Foothills mall today at 6 p.m., and extremely early voting results from last night are in.

The duo in June bought the mall out of bankruptcy for $45 million, where it’d been since Greenwood-based Alberta Development Partners and financial backer Walton Street Capital defaulted on the property still owing $47 million of a $150 million construction loan.

Loveland-based McWhinney and L.A.-based retail redeveloper and operator Prism bought it all, save a city-owned parking structure and an activity center.

The questions have begun, all leading to the two biggest: Why’d they buy and what will they do with it?

Monday’s chat was at McWhinney-owned Elizabeth Hotel, tonight’s at the mall’s former Loft Outlet.

Amanda Lima, who owns four-year-old Lima Coffee Roasters, added a mall kiosk last year, and plans to open a sit-down location in Old Town next month, is glad to see it begin. She expressed hopes her fellow Millennials would chip in their two cents at some point.

McWhinney vice president of commercial development for Northern Colorado Clyde Wood and Prism Places president Stenn Parton fielded responses to a couple dozen questions from about 70 members of the community Monday and plan to do it all again tonight.

Early, Often

On Monday, the crowd began to mill about at 5:30 p.m., and the hosted bar was open but event organizers cagily kept the food — charcuterie meats, cheeses, dried fruit, pungent pickles, tangy sauces and dips — under wraps until their questions had been answered.

Come for the talk; stay for the prosciutto.

A 60-second video delivered some info on Prism, still somewhat of a cypher to locals — 1,000 events a year and 37 million annual visits at its malls; $2.4 billion in assets under management — as well as data on McWhinney’s extensive operations.

Survey responses were delivered from the people to the partners via sign-in code at Menti, an interactive presentation provider platform from Mentimeter AB, based in Stockholm.

Queries asked respondents to vote early and often on head-to-head match-ups, comparisons among a half-dozen options, and would-you-rather style ratings.

Two-thirds of them had lived in Fort Collins longer than 10 years, for instance; just under half of replies said they visited Foothills at least once a month — though only a third of those came weekly. More than two-thirds came for either restaurants or retail, that is, to eat and shop.

Which is a mall.

Just 5% came for the fitness.

Half shopped the College Avenue collection: stores fronting FoCo’s main drag. The interior of the mall was a different kind of drag: just one-fifth ever set foot inside. The restaurants and movie theater did OK, with 30% participation.

More than 90% of shoppers — 64 of the 70 voters — drive there. The other six chose foot, bike or public transport.

Foothills mall ran dead last in a six-way race of shop options, including Old Town Fort Collins and Front Range Village, Cherry Creek in Denver, Centerra in Loveland, and Pearl Street in Boulder.

Housing, rental or for-sale brought up the rear, ahead only of offices, for what people want to see as part of the mall reboot, or don’t want, perhaps. But given trends in Colorado and California and nationwide no one’s giving odds against some at the new layout.

A fun one at the end — “glamping” beat “camping” by a 5-4 ratio — threw a smackeral of doubt into the hardcore hiking reputation of the Fort Collins populace.

Horse Races

Henry Ford and Steve Jobs famously dinged the not impartial public for wanting faster horses.

Parton and Wood asked people anyway.

Voters wanted a farmer’s market more than “yet another beer and wine festival” as one audience member put it. Parton later acknowledged, however, that distilleries may intrigue as an option. Fort Collins has at least six, according to a recent issue of regional restaurant guide Dining & desserts. 

Still, the duo of alcohol and veggies — a Fort Collins crowd for sure — ran 1-2, and bested concerts, arts, culture, kids, and fitness concerns that once again landed dead last.

The low showing of the mall providing something for the kiddos prompted one audience member to note that this was because families with children weren’t present. A later question that showed “safety” as a relatively non-existent concern was quickly — and the audience seemed to agree, accurately — attributed to the community’s relatively stellar performance in that area already.

In general, answers, whether technological and distant or personal and direct, came across as earnest and heartfelt. Parton and Wood did, as well.

Retail wisdom holds a fair bit of “why we buy” as the title of a classic tome of shopper marketing puts it in perspective not to mention subjective, and the sometime-craziness of crowds did show up Monday. As soon as one speaker asked for more crafting local artisans another wanted a few recognizable chains, too.

Climate was a concern. Suggestions included connectivity between stores — “like in Minnesota” — but a man with an across-the-pond accent said he hadn’t moved to Fort Collins “to go to a Minnesota mall.”

Several intonations showed speakers wanted nothing smacking of “Boulder” or “Loveland,” but they did shop there over Foothills. Old Town Fort Collins “feels more special … you can go and walk around” — but as another response noted you can’t buy household staples there; it’s for boutique fun.

Local dog-friendly, pie-and-cocktail offering Ginger and Baker got kudos but one person still pleaded for a Cheesecake Factory.

Sometimes we don’t know what we want, as Ford and Jobs knew.

Some said they’d go online when they can’t find something at Foothills. None mentioned Amazon directly — though the Wall Street Journal did last week, saying the ecommerce gorilla in the outdoor quad area wants to open retail department stores.

© 2021 BizWest Media LLC

on Facebook on LinkedIn