Harmony gets a retail facelift that city leaders hope will translate into big bucks

The three main entrances into Fort Collins from Interstate 25 have always been distinctly different, especially compared to the gateways into other Front Range cities, and that’s one of the things that’s kept the city unique.

Times have changed on the south side, however, as the grip of gentrification tightens around the Choice City.

In the very recent past, the first signs of retail and restaurants along Harmony Road weren’t visible until the intersection with Lemay Avenue—and that was just six or seven years ago, before the new movie theater opened on Timberline Road.

Now, drivers who come into south Fort Collins from the highway pass a slew of lunch stops and big-box retailers long before they come to Lemay.

One exit north, Prospect Road still offers travelers a view of a natural area with tall grasses and ponds. The next stop up I-25, Mulberry Street, looks like a different city entirely with its scattered warehouses and general industrial feel.

But for people visiting Fort Collins to shop, eat and enjoy the outdoors, Harmony’s changing look will give the city’s main southern gateway a very different ambiance.

Front Range Village, the new shopping center that city leaders hope will salve Fort Collins’ wounded retail base, is slated to start opening its first stores July 27, according to developer Eric Mallory. The 900,000 square-foot shopping center will be anchored by a Super Target, Lowe’s, Staples and Sports Authority, along with other stores like Toys “R” Us, Babies “R” Us, DSW and Ulta.

Owner Bayer Properties projects $225 million in annual sales from the center, and city leaders have said it will increase the city’s coffers by more than $1.5 million in new sales tax revenue.

In a possible sign of how the project represents an evolution in mass retail, the shopping center recently hired Melissa Moran, former general manager of Foothills Mall, to be the new center’s general manager.

Construction is ongoing at the anchor stores and city street crews are still working on a $33 million project to improve roads around the center, including building a roundabout at the intersection of Ziegler and Horsetooth roads.

The project also includes a new branch of the Fort Collins Public Library, and a manufactured “main street” with mixed office and retail space.

It won’t be quite as Old Town-y as the planned Grand Station development at Centerra, which will mimic a downtown square, but it is aiming to be a pedestrian-friendly destination in its own right. Mallory said the hybrid concept combines a traditional strip mall setting with the amenities of lifestyle centers like Centerra.

“It gives you all the stability of large-format retailers, like Target, Lowe’s, Staples, and it also creates some pedestrian amenities like the fire pits and plazas and much of the core area that we have in the project,” he said.

City leaders are hoping the project will serve as a retail roadblock of sorts, preventing Fort Collins dollars from heading to Loveland and keeping Wyoming-based shoppers north of Colo. Hwy. 392.

“I’m hoping we see this as a net gain and it attracts people to come into Fort Collins. We have more to offer than just shopping in Fort Collins,” City Councilman Diggs Brown said. “We have Old Town, we have the river—there are a lot of good things that, when people are given an opportunity to experience Fort Collins and also shop here, should be a big plus.”



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Things were a bit different years ago, back when Centerra was still an empty field and while Fort Collins, Loveland and Windsor were all competing for a retail mecca.

The area around Harmony and Ziegler had been designated for high-paying jobs at places like Intel, Hewlett-Packard and Advanced Micro Devices. But several years ago, the City Council approved amending the Harmony Corridor’s master plan to allow for retail.

Southern development companies Bayer, based in Birmingham, Ala., and Poag & McEwen, based in Memphis, Tenn., each proposed outdoor “lifestyle centers”—pedestrian-friendly, well-landscaped outdoor malls—in Fort Collins and Loveland, respectively. Two other proposals centered on the I-25-Colo. 392 interchange at the western gateway to Windsor, and along Prospect Road and I-25.

Bayer initially proposed a 450,000-square-foot site for the Harmony and Ziegler location, hoping to hone in on shoppers from around the region and solidify Fort Collins’ place as the premier place to shop north of Broomfield.

But Poag & McEwen started developing Centerra at the prodding of the McWhinney family of Loveland, who owned the land it now sits on. Centerra shovels were in the ground first, and in June 2006, Bayer said it would retool plans for its Fort Collins property.

Ultimately, the project evolved into its current hybrid form.

No matter what you call it, city leaders expect it to earn big dividends for the city. City Finance Director Mike Freeman estimated Front Range Village will earn about $1.5 million more every year for the city’s general fund, which flows to police, fire, parks, transportation and other vital services.

Those great expectations are one reason why City Council agreed to spend some of the city’s reserves to shore up the 2008-2009 budget, hoping to repay it after Front Range Village opens.

City leaders said they will wait and see what the new development looks like before passing judgment. But if the parking lot at the Harmony School Shops—another new development just west of the Bayer project—was any indication on Tuesday, residents are already offering their praise.

Until the new restaurants opened, workers at places like AMD, Poudre Valley Health System and the Fort Collins Youth Clinic would drive west on Harmony for the few lunch options on the south side of town. Now they have Chipotle, Mad Greens and Spicy Pickle, along with the promise of more eateries within Front Range Village.

Carol Anderson and Lorrie Kehmeir, who work at the youth clinic, started laughing when they were asked if they plan to stop often at Mad Greens, a new Denver-based salad restaurant.

“We already do,” Kehmeir said.

Donna Rupert, who works at AMD, said workers can walk to the restaurants if they want.

She marveled at the new view from the company’s third-floor office, where two large patios overlook the new buildings, including the new “main street,” called Gray’s Hamlet. The development offers a bit of give and take, Rupert said.

“Our engineers really enjoyed the open field behind us. They flew remote control planes on their lunch break, for instance. But now they are looking forward to having the restaurants in that area. So we are looking forward to the new amenities,” she said.

Existing businesses in the north end of town are also anticipating a potential benefit from those amenities—a sort of retail fly trap.

Chip Steiner, director of Fort Collins’ Downtown Development Authority, said the new center could work in concert with Old Town’s unique boutiques to keep the city’s retail base healthy.

“In the past, using the old Foothills Fashion Mall as an example, downtown and the mall tended to work well together, basically because both were regional draws, and people would come to town and shop both ends of it,” he said.

He said when the Promenade Shops at Centerra opened in the fall of 2006, downtown shops felt a ripple effect for about six months, but sales tax collections were still strong.

“I think if anything, it will just draw more people to Fort Collins, and since they’re in their car already, maybe they’ll go downtown, too,” he said.

The shift in retail from strip malls to enclosed malls and now lifestyle centers, including “new Old Towns” like the one proposed for the McWhinneys’ Grand Station in Loveland, have forced real Old Towns to rethink how they do business, he said.

“It’s hard to evaluate until they come, but there is one significant difference no matter how you cut it, and that’s that we’re real and they’re not,” he said. “We’re constantly having to reinvent ourselves; it’s a never-ending process.

“But on the other hand, that’s good, because continuing to reinvent ourselves is a good process. We don’t get stagnant that way.”