Sports Authority plans store at Broadmoor Towne Center

Sports Authority plans to open a store in the shuttered Borders Books & Music space at the Broadmoor Towne Center on Colorado Springs’ southwest side.

The Englewood-based sporting goods retailer, which has about 450 stores nationwide, has signed a lease and might open in the Broadmoor Towne Center this summer, said Dan Rodriguez of the Madsen Real Estate Group, a Springs commercial brokerage that markets the shopping center. The 25,000-square-foot Borders space has been empty since the chain folded last year.

“It’s a good tenant for that trade area,” Rodriguez said. “It’s a great addition to that part of town because it’s a category that’s not currently down there. It’s a win.”

Likewise, such sizeable spaces aren’t easily filled these days because of the still struggling economy.

“There are not a lot of tenants that size running around right now,” Rodriguez said. “We had a few others look at that space. We’ve looked at a few other tenants, but I think that’s the right fit for the neighborhood, it’s the right fit for that part of Colorado Springs, it’s the right fit for the tenant.”

Kent Miller, a Sports Authority spokesman, said he couldn’t immediately confirm details of the chain’s plans for a new store in Colorado Springs.

Sports Authority has two existing locations in the Springs — 7730 N. Academy Blvd. in the Market at Chapel Hills West and 1409 N. Academy Blvd. in the Rustic Hills Shopping Center.
Whether one of those stores would close and move to Broadmoor Towne Center wasn’t known.

The Market at Chapel Hills West is a busy shopping center on the Springs’ north side, near the Chapel Hills Mall; its anchors include PetSmart, Stein Mart, Ross Dress For Less and 24 Hour Fitness.

However, Sports Authority remains the last anchor at the Rustic Hills Shopping Center, which was sold in October after having fallen into foreclosure earlier in 2011. Other than some smaller stores and individual buildings, Rustic Hills is a ghost town, having seen Hobby Lobby, T.J. Maxx and others depart.

Jay Carlson, a broker with Front Range Commercial in Colorado Springs who previously marketed the Rustic Hills Shopping Center, said he wouldn’t be surprised if Sports Authority were to relocate its Rustic Hills store.

The decision by many retailers on where to set up shop, he said, often comes down to finances: How many sales can the retailer generate at any given location compared with its lease rate and other costs of doing business?

“If they are looking at another location,” Carlson said, “all national retailers have real estate projection programs that they do, based on demographics and historic sales in those areas and so forth, where they come up with their best guess of what kind of sales they can do at any location and they’ll run that program on a new location against the rent they’re going to have to pay at a new location.”

The rent at Broadmoor Towne Center — a newer shopping center developed about a decade ago that includes Home Depot, PetSmart and Bed, Bath & Beyond — would be much higher, Carlson said. However, if Sports Authority were to move, it would be leasing less space than its 40,000 square feet at Rustic Hills, he said.

Broadmoor Towne Center also will become home to Larkburger, a Colorado hamburger chain that plans to open in a 2,500-square-foot space on the shopping center’s north side.
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