City Council Minutes 1982 08 03 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

City Counci Minutes FRED BRUENING. , SEARS REAL ESTATE MANAGER August 3, 1982 PAGE 3 Mr. Bruening is real estate manager for Sears and its 13 state western region. He stated: We manage approximately 1,000 existing projects as well as our planning of 25 new projects in the major store category. Before I go into some of the details, I want to put to rest some of the s~eculation about why Sears announced what it did and what it intends to do in this market. I would first like to thank the city for its on-going support of this project. Most especially, for the record, would like to thank the partnership entity consisting of Jacobs/Kahan and Homart Development Co. It is my professinal opinion that no developer could have acted anymore professionally and they did everything possible to bring a regional shopp- ing center into being, but the realities of current economy and availability of other major depart- ment stores, in the end provided insurmountable obstacles to the development of a shopping center in Louisville. Sears has been commited for approx- imately 4 years to the Centennial Valley Mall and one of the original requirements that we found necessary for this project to be viable was 3 major department stores in the project. In the past year members of the Kahan organization and Homart, and myself, have travelled from Washington to New York City to Texas, and many points in- between and try to bring a 3rd major store into being. In the past several months, in part due to the Crossroads shopping center, part due to the current economy, which is slowing up shopping center development in all areas of the county, it is clear and apparent that a 3rd major store is not available. Plus the slower growth of this area, it is not feasible to continue planning for the Mall in this market. You are probably wondering what Sears plans are for the Boulder County market.. .there is speculation in the paper, I believe in this point of time, Sears does not have any plans for Boulder County. We are not sure Louisville would fly, and we have no indications that Sears will locate in Boulder County. What Sears has been trying to do is to objectively analyze the' viability of an existing Center that is bei~g expanded in Boulder, look at what that will do/tHe market place and demand for additional retail space in Louisville and when we came to the bottom line, there was no chance of a p ro j e c t rea 11 y go i n g a h e ad. We f e 1 t t hat Sea r s as a company owed it not only to the development entity, but to the citizens of Lousivlle, and the entire Boulder County, not to continue planning or fostering hope of a shopping center. That