VOLUME 40 • NUMBER 3 • DECEMBER 16, 2021
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Centennial will approve 900 new housing units at the Streets of SouthGlenn
BY FREDA MIKLIN GOVERNMENTAL REPORTER
W
hen the City of Centennial devotes eight hours in public meetings over two days to discuss a proposed redevelopment and that redevelopment is the subject of the front-page headline in The Denver Post (December 7), it’s a sign that something significant is changing. After the original SouthGlenn mall, built in 1974, closed in 2005, the Streets of SouthGlenn (SOS) was rebuilt by Alberta Development Partners between 2007 and
2009. It was one of the area’s first mixed-use developments combining residential, retail, and offices in one place. Although it took a little while to catch on, SOS eventually experienced some success, but that changed in recent years as brick-and-mortar retail stores fell victim to changing purchasing patterns from in-store to online. Large department stores were one of those that were hardest hit in the retail sector, partly because they developed their own online shopping websites that increasingly compete with their stores. The COVID-19 pandemic only hastened the inevitable. According to data presented by Alberta’s Don
Provost to the Centennial City Council on December 6, 12,200 retail stores around the U.S. closed in 2020. Of the 1,600 remaining large department stores today, half are expected to close by 2025. The anchor tenants at SOS were Sears on the south end and Macy’s on the north. Sears at SOS closed in 2018 and Macy’s is set to close in 2022. At the same time, Colorado’s population continues to grow and housing is in short supply in the metro area, driving prices higher. In 2017, Northwood Investors, a Denver company that specializes in mixed-use development, bought the Sears property, antici-
This rendering of the north side of the redevelopment demonstrates how residential property and offices are part of a walkable SOS.
pating the store’s closing. In 2018, Alberta bought the Macy’s property, anticipating that it too would soon close. In 2019, Alberta and Northwood began a process that would eventually lead to a proposal to the City of Centennial to redevelop the Sears and Macy’s properties as 900 new residential housing units to anchor SOS in place of the failed department stores, providing much-needed housing for people whose presence there would support the retail, restaurants, movie theater and other businesses. After what Kyle Whitaker of Northwood described on Decem-
ber 6 as two years of listening to the community’s concerns in three large-scale community meetings, 18 small group meetings, and 14 individual meetings, the developers scaled back their original plans, eventually settling on proposed amendments to the SOS Master Development Plan (MDP) and the Master Development Agreement (MDA) that included less density and height than originally planned, plus larger setbacks and stepbacks. They also added a new 25,000 square foot (0.57-acre) contiguous green public space. Continued on page 8
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