AURORA | Oh, how have times have changed on South Havana Street.
Once the symbol of suburban decay, the 50-acre site formerly occupied by the Buckingham Square Mall in west-central Aurora has morphed into one of the liveliest retail centers in the metro area.
“To open that size of a center during the worst time in retail in the past two decades, I think they did an amazing job in filling up space,” said Tim Gonerka, retail specialist for the city.
After first opening its doors in 2007, The Gardens on Havana now only has four infill vacancies in its over 50-tenant development that once struggled during the recession.
“It’s been a total reversal of what happened in 2008 and 2009, and really all the stars aligned,” said Scott Goldhammer, director of property management at Miller Real Estate Investments and former property manager of the Gardens. Miller sold the development to national investment firm AmCap last November.
Commanded by anchors such as Target, Kohl’s, Sprouts and Toys “R” US, the current asking price for the remaining plots at the Havana St. retail hub is $30 per square foot — a price nearly double the city average, according to Gonerka. In addition to two vacant land parcels, there are two approximately 3,000-square-foot spaces, one 1,700-square-foot plot and a recently shuttered Radio Shack storefront available at the Gardens.
“It’s constantly a moving target,” Brenda Soper, the current property manager of the Gardens said of tenant mobility. The newest firm to move into the development was ULTA Beauty, which opened its doors in late February.
With a $30-per-sqaure-foot asking price, plots within the Gardens are now in the top tier of Aurora commercial real estate. However, the price for leasing a plot at Gardens is in line with developments of similar scale in the area, according to Soper, who manages several other commercial properties in Aurora.
“I don’t think $30 per square foot is any different from what our other centers lease for and I don’t think that’s abnormal for a shopping center of that nature,” she said.
The average price per square foot to lease a retail space in Aurora was just under $15 in February, which is up approximately 19 percent over the same time last year, according to commercial real estate site LoopNet. The metro-wide average asking price for leasable retail properties only increased 6 percent over 2014, and currently stands at just over $16 per square foot.
Gonerka explained that an excess of aging retail centers and a lack of fresh development like Gardens bog down Aurora’s citywide average.
“We have good locations and we have good traffic counts, we just have to get our centers up to speed,” he said.
The traffic count at the eastern edge of the Gardens on the corner of East Mississippi Avenue and Havana was approximately 39,000 vehicles a day in 2013, according to the Colorado Department of Transportation.
Those traffic counts, along with an increased demand for commercial real estate in both Aurora and Denver — the number of for-lease retail spaces dropped more by than 25 percent across the metro area last year — could position both Aurora and remaining vacancies at Gardens to fill out sooner rather than later.
Fast-casual dining is one sector Gonerka said could quickly serve to infill and renovate much of Aurora’s available commercial real estate — both new and antiquated.
Gayle Jetchick, executive director of the Havana Business Improvement District, said that although she’s heard calls for an Einstein’s Bagels at Gardens, she’s just impressed with how far the development has come.
“It took a little longer to fill it up because the economy tanked and nobody was expanding, but we’re very pleased with what we’ve gotten,” she said.
Goldhammer echoed Jetchick’s enthusiasm regarding how the development has progressed.
“We saw it go from the worst conditions our company had seen in many years in 2009 to some of the best conditions we have ever seen in 2014,” he said. “Things have really come full circle.”
Developments such as the Gardens are becoming dominated by eateries and phone stores, anchored by grocery stores and or what remains of department stores such as Target or smaller Walmart Neighborhood stores. Traditional malls like Aurora Town Center will become pretty much extinct within 10 years … people are buying online to save money and avoid sales taxes.
Not sure they will become extinct. Do not discount the Incredibly profitable teenage girl and young woman demographic. Stores like Forever 21 and Victoria Secret are replacing the traditional stores like Sears and JC Penny. Many women like to browse in an environment where they feel safe and secure. The traditional mall provides them with that experience.