Construction heats up on North College Avenue: Two years after King Soopers opened on North College Avenue, activity is once again underway on new retailers.
A new Discount Tire store, seen here Thursday, is under construction in the North College Marketplace in Fort Collins. / Dawn Madura/The Coloradoan
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Two years after King Soopers opened a sprawling store on North College Avenue, construction is in high gear for two new businesses at North College Marketplace in Fort Collins.
Pushing an ambitious time frame, Discount Tire hopes to open its doors in late October just north of Pobre Pancho’s Mexican restaurant and developers broke ground earlier this month on a 5,500-square-foot building that will house Perfect Teeth, a national chain of dentists, and a tenant to be named later.
It’s the first new activity at the marketplace since Great Clips opened in mid-2011. In addition to King Soopers, the marketplace houses Bullfrog Liquor — owned by Loveland Commercial LLC, which also owns the marketplace —— Serious Texas BBQ and Chase Bank.
Loveland Commercial’s Nathan Klein said the activity is a tribute to investments made by the city and the Urban Renewal Authority in the corridor that has typically been of little interest to national tenants.
The URA, which is also the City Council, kicked in $8 million in tax increment financing to help developers with road improvements and wetland mitigation.
“It makes a big difference when you drive up there and the streetscape is done and you see what the Engines Lab (CSU Engines and Energy Conversion Laboratory) is doing,” Klein said. “It doesn’t feel as disconnected as it once did.”
Klein said Perfect Teeth shrugged off Loveland Commercial early in the project. “Once they saw the whole thing mature and saw the traffic at King Soopers they came back around,” he said. Loveland Commercial is also negotiating with another national tenant who said no “half a dozen times,” Klein said. “They finally said they wanted to revisit it and it has progressed to active negotiations.”
Neil McCaffrey, a member of the North College Citizen’s Advisory Group and North Fort Collins Business Association that have long pushed for redevelopment of North College Avenue, said the activity is good for everyone. “It’s getting to be a real shopping center and that’s nice. We’ve got more activity up here, we’ll soon have student housing (Aspen Grove) and that will bring in some retail money for the guys in the King Soopers and Albertsons shopping centers.”
