Two Academy Blvd. retail centers reel from multiple blows

A decade or so ago, the Rustic Hills Shopping Center had gotten a new lease on life.

Now it and its neighbor across the street, Rustic Hills North, are largely empty — the victims of changing demographics, shifting retail, building design and perhaps a bit of bad luck.

Built as an enclosed mall in the late 1960s — the first of its kind in Colorado Springs — the Rustic Hills Shopping Center was razed in 1997 and transformed into a big-box retail center with a lineup that included existing tenants T.J. Maxx and Gart Sports (now Sports Authority), and newcomers such as Hobby Lobby and Ross Dress for Less.

But most of them are now gone. With the closing last month of Shoe Carnival, the only big box surviving is Sports Authority.

The shopping center is at the southeast corner of Academy and Palmer Park boulevards. Just across Palmer Park is Rustic Hills North — once home to an Albertsons grocery store and Longs Drugs store, and now equally vacant.

For businesses inthe area that are already struggling to survive in the tough economy, the empty storefronts don’t help.

A sign on the door at Grand Gyros, just south of the empty Albertsons, reads: “Due to many vacancies in the shopping center, our revenue has decreased much. Please let us continue to serve you more often. Please tell your friends and neighbors about us.”

“It was a little hard for me to do, because I feel like I’m begging,” owner Nikzad Hasehemi said of the sign.
But he’s not sure what else to do. Without the walk-in traffic from having Longs and Albertsons there, he said, “We don’t have new customers. We’re not making it.”

If Grand Gyros gets some new, bigger neighbors, they may not be retail. Leasing agents for Rustic Hills and Rustic Hills North aren’t counting out attracting new retail, but they’re also looking at other uses.

“We are keeping our options open to entertaining light manufacturing if need be, some things like that,” said Jay Carlson of Front Range Commercial, the leasing agent for the Rustic Hills Shopping Center. “Whatever it takes to fill those buildings.”

One challenge facing the shopping center is the design.

A mall-owned strip of smaller shops and businesses facing Academy “is doing fairly well,” Carlson said. But the big boxes, except for Sports Authority, face Palmer Park rather than the busier Academy Boulevard.

“Retail’s tough, no matter where you are right now, and when you have locations to market that are not ideal from a retail standpoint, it makes things even tougher,” Carlson said.

Rustic Hills North has problems, too, he said.  Because it’s set so far back from Academy, with businesses in front lining the road,  “you can hardly see it from Academy at all.”

“You’ve got two centers that aren’t designed properly,” agreed Mark Useman of Sierra Commercial Real Estate. “But I think it’s more the evolving area and boxes moving to the northeast and east parts of Colorado Springs, where the growth is and where the money is.”

Indeed, most of Rustic Hills’ loss has been Powers Boulevard’s gain. T.J. Maxx, Hobby Lobby and Ross Dress for Less now all have locations on booming Powers, which parallels Academy to the east.

“It’s been kind of the shiny new penny for the last 10 years, really the last five years,” said Marty Johnson of CB Richard Ellis, the leasing agent for Rustic Hills North. “It’s blossomed out on Powers with retail. And they cleaned out Rustic Hills.”

City government officials, prompted by the growing number of empty storefronts and a lack of development, labeled Central and South Academy as problem areas in 2007. Academy Boulevard, though, “is still a viable trade area,” Johnson said. “It’s not going to go away. There’s too much going on there and too much traffic there for it not to be.”

Rustic Hills North lost its key anchors in a devastating one-two punch. Albertsons shut its doors in 2006, one of more than a dozen  in Colorado that were deemed underachievers and closed. Longs Drugs was lost after the pharmacy chain decided in 2007 to pull out of Colorado.

Johnson said there has been interest in some of the Rustic Hills North spaces from small, mom and pop retailers; some, he says, are what he calls “the dreamers” — people who have never been in business before and think they can make a go of it.

But with the lack of visibility from Academy and the absence of a larger draw to the center, the smaller businesses would likely be set up to fail, he said.

“I think what will happen over the years to some of the retail space, it’ll be converted to office or warehousing or manufacturing,” Johnson said.

With ample parking for employees, dock-high access in the rear and other features, the shopping center could be ripe for some uses, he added.

Lee Ann Lizzul would like to see a grocery store return there. Lizzul is director of the Colorado Springs Center for Hearing, Speech and Language, which moved from inside the Rustic Hills Mall to the mall-owned strip facing Academy when Rustic Hills became a big box center. Lizzul, who grew up in the Springs, remembers going with her grandparents to Furr’s Cafeteria in the early days of the Rustic Hills Shopping Center.  She lives only a few miles away and has been dismayed to see all of the departures in recent years.

“When Hobby Lobby closed, that the was the biggest surprise,” she said. “It was busy all the time. It was one of their biggest stores.”

Along with losing the Albertsons at Rustic Hills North, the King Soopers a mile or so south on Murray Boulevard is also gone, Lizzul noted.

“It’s really sad for all of the neighborhood.”
—
Contact the writer at 636-0272.

MALL MEMORIES
The Rustic Hills Mall, the first enclosed mall in Colorado Springs, opened more than 40 years ago. Here are some memories of the mall posted at the online forum at pikes-peak-cafe.com:

The Rustic Hills Shopping Center was one of my favorite haunts. And although I can remember its layout and decor — and even, it seems to me, the smell of the place (Furr’s Cafeteria?) — I can’t remember too many specifics. ... Let’s see, starting on the east side there was a nifty general merchandise store where I always perused the latest albums. I remember coming across the Monkees, Rod Stewart, Jethro Tull, the Beatles, of course, and McCartney’s early solo efforts and clearly recall buying two albums in particular there: Uriah Heep’s “Wizards and Demons” and Peter Nero’s “Summer of ’42.” (What can I say? I was a teeny-bopper.) A little farther west, past Furr’s, was a very cool little independent book shop where I practically lived. I was really into the ’30-’40s pulp hero Doc Savage (still am, I guess) and they had row upon row of cool Doc paperbacks displayed there.

Here’s what I remember about Rustic Hills from my experiences there in the ’70s and ’80s:
From the north entrance, there was what I think was a lingerie store on the left. On the right was some sort of clothing store, I believe. If you walked straight ahead you’d enter Furr’s. I do remember a Hallmark store there on the east wing, which was a good place to buy Smurf figurines, which my brother and I collected at one point. ... On the west end there was a Tru-Value hardware store, and this place also appealed to my brother and I because they carried toys during the Christmas season, including the ever-popular Star Wars stuff. ...
We also spent a lot of time at the Rustic Hills North location that included the Albertsons and the drug store (my first memories of this store were when it was called SKAGGS, the sign being comprised of huge yellow letters). It later turned into an Osco Drug and finally Long’s Drugs.
Does anyone remember THE SODA STRAW on the far north end of the Rustic Hills North complex, near Academy? It was sort of an old-timey ice cream shop and I seem to remember everyone wearing bright white and red striped shirts.

And here’s a memory via e-mail from a Gazette reader, Ann Schulzki:
I too remember bits and pieces of the Rustic Hills Mall. I am a Mitchell grad (1979) and my dad was a counselor at Mitchell and Palmer around that time. The place to go was the Rustic Hills Mall. It was wide and spacious. I have trouble remembering all the different stores, but I do remember the big lines to get into Furr’s Cafeteria. We would go once a week, and I recall the great selection of food, the piano player to serenade us, and seeing my dad’s fellow teachers doing the same (it was affordable on a educator’s salary). ... The Rustic Hills Mall was the center of all things happening off Academy Boulevard in the late 1960s and 1970s.

And another from David Kibler:
I definitely remember Rustic Hills Mall. I grew up in Black Forest in the ’60s and ’70s and it was the first and closest mall for us.
I can even see the layout still clearly in my mind. Our family would eat at Furr’s Cafeteria on Sundays, then we’d fan out across the mall for shopping afterward. There was a Tandy Leather store near the north entrance, located next to a Radio Shack. There was a Duckwall’s store near the west entrance, there was a Hallmark store next to that, and a hair salon on the north side.
On the east northeast side was a Gibson’s department store. I remember my parents buying my brother and I winter parkas and snowboots there. And in the back of Gibson’s was the record department where I bought 45’s for 77 cents!
I worked at the old KYSN radio station in 1980 through 1982 (Colorado Springs’ original Top 40 station at 1460 AM) and our night deejay, Mark Murray, did a radiothon from inside Rustic Hills Mall for a weekend, I believe for the Jerry Lewis Telethon in about 1980 or ’81.
Later, Gibson’s closed and was converted into a bunch of smaller stores including a waterbed store. (Yes, I bought one there!) and a Pet City where I saved up my KYSN wages and bought an orange wing Amazon parrot.