Bass Pro hopes to reel in 180 workers at Loveland hiring events

LOVELAND — Outdoor-recreation retailer Bass Pro Shops, which plans to open a 129,000-square-foot store in Loveland this year, is looking to hire more than 180 full-time and part-time employees across all departments to staff it.

Thirteen months after its groundbreaking, construction continues at the site northeast of the Crossroads Boulevard interchange on Interstate 25 in a mixed-use project called The Brands, which is being developed by the Windsor-based Water Valley Co. A Bass Pro news release issued Wednesday stated that a grand opening would be announced soon.

According to the release, the retailer will host a hiring event from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Feb. 3 and Feb. 4 at the Embassy Suites hotel, 4705 Clydesdale Parkway. Those interested in applying also can do so in advance by visiting basspro.com/careers and selecting the Loveland location. After applying online, according to the news release, applicants should attend the hiring event, where on-site interviews will be conducted.

Employees receive merchandise discounts of up to 50%, “competitive wages,” and holiday and vacation pay. According to the release, health, dental and life-insurance programs are available for ”eligible team members.”

Bass Pro sells fishing and hunting gear, as well as equipment and clothing for hiking, biking, backpacking, wildlife viewing, camping and other related outdoor activities. Stores also feature aquariums, wildlife dioramas and free seasonal experiences.

The chain currently has three other locations in Colorado as well as two Cabela’s stores. The company acquired Cabela’s in 2017.

When the new Bass Pro location opens, it will intensify the competition for the outdoor sports enthusiast’s dollar, with five major big-box retailers within slightly more than two miles of each other. The existing outdoor stores operate near three corners of the interchange of I-25 and U.S. Highway 34: REI Co-op opened in summer 2024 in Centerra Marketplace on the northwest corner; a Sportsman Warehouse opened in 2001 in Centerra Marketplace; a Dick’s Sporting Goods outlet has been open for more than a decade at the Promenade Shops at Centerra northeast of the interchange; and the largest, a 250,000-square-foot Scheels location, southeast of the interchange in Johnstown, made its debut in 2017.

When the Loveland City Council approved an incentive package to lure Bass Pro in August 2023, Scott Schorling, the city’s business project development manager, noted that although there will be “some overlap of product” between Bass Pro and nearby outdoor retailers, “the product mix is different” and that Bass Pro would add the sale of “a lot of boats” to the mix. He told council members that Bass Pro is projected to attract an estimated half-million visitors a year, generate around $40 million in annual sales and employ at least 150 people at an annual average salary of $54,000.

The roots of BPS Direct LLC, doing business as Bass Pro Shops, trace to 1972, when 24-year-old Johnny Morris began selling fishing tackle out of his father’s Brown Derby Liquor Store in Springfield, Missouri. When his customers started asking for specialized gear, Morris started the first Bass Pro Shops catalog in 1974, and four years later introduced Tracker Boats, a boat, motor and trailer package designed for anglers. He opened the first brick-and-mortar store in Springfield in 1981 that quickly became a tourist attraction, and opened the affiliated Big Cedar Lodge in the late 1980s on Table Rock Lake in the Missouri Ozarks.

The incentive package that the Loveland City Council unanimously approved to reel in Bass Pro was built on the December 2016 business-assistance agreement between Water Valley president Martin Lind and the city to develop The Brands, which ends in 2047.

Bass Pro representatives had asked for considerations including construction-permit fee waivers, being allowed to keep two of every three cents collected in city sales tax until the Brands agreement ends in 2047 plus a three-year extension, and a donation to fund a larger aquarium, a typical feature in Bass Pro stores.

In response, the city staff recommended reducing the fee waiver on construction building permits, use tax, stormwater impact fees, general government capital expansion fees and law-enforcement capital expansion fees, but not to exceed $800,000. They agreed to rebate two cents of sales tax until 2047, but not to extend the Brands agreement. They also agreed to change the name of Stallion Drive to Bass Pro Drive.

Also as part of the pact, Water Valley committed to donate the 19-acre tract to the developer, Dallas-based Charles Hodges Development Services, which has worked to build many Bass Pro locations. It committed to the sales tax rebate plan, as well as other provisions including a 100% waiver of all metro district fees and a 100% assurance of no offsite costs including street/utilities and storm sewers.

The agreement committed the developer to pay the costs of construction, operation and maintenance in part through imposing a 39-mill levy on all taxable property, to be collected through an existing metro district, and enacting a minimum 1.75% public-improvement fee on all taxable sales.

Lind had been determined to lure Bass Pro Shops since 2016, the year after it walked away from a proposed site in the Centerra development one exit south around the time the Scheels sporting-goods store announced that it would locate nearby. He resumed talks with Bass Pro late in 2022, and site consultant and developer Charles Hodges visited Loveland in May 2023 to explain Bass Pro’s processes and requests, then returned the next month to meet staffers from the city’s economic-development, utilities and parks and recreation departments as well as cultural services, Visit Loveland and the Pulse municipal broadband system.

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