When a group of investors met last year with city planning staff to discuss building a new hotel in south Durango, a senior planner had a warning: The ownership of Durango Mall could be a “wild card” in the review process.

Sure enough, two months later, a letter from the mall’s attorney arrived, raising several concerns about the La Quinta Inn proposal.

The attorney, Denny Ehlers, later said the mall’s concerns seemed to have been satisfied and did not raise additional objections to the proposed hotel. Still, to many observers, the mall’s objections fit a pattern.

The mall also objected when Mercury Payment Systems, a successful homegrown credit card processing company, first applied to build a new headquarters that eventually put hundreds of workers next to the mall.

Mall representatives also fought the city’s plan to extend the Animas River Trail behind the building on South Camino del Rio.

“I can’t think of anything that’s happened in the mall or the vicinity of the mall in the past five years that hasn’t involved a lawsuit or the threat of a lawsuit,” said Roger Zalneraitis, executive director of La Plata County Economic Development Alliance.

Durango Mall is a bit of a mystery to many locals. It has several nationwide anchor stores, but many smaller retailers – some of them locally owned or seasonal only – have come and gone. It currently does not have a food court or restaurant, and over the years, those types of businesses generally have not stayed there for long.

Nationally, regional malls suffered during the economic downturn. Demographic changes are also playing a role. Throughout the nation, cities are booming, and suburbs and their malls are becoming less desirable.

Durango Mall is anchored by major national and international chains such as T.J. Maxx, JCPenney and Sports Authority. Pier 1 Imports and Bed Bath & Beyond occupy the space where for many years Kmart was open.

The current anchor stores seem to perform well, attracted to the mall in part by affordable rental rates for large-scale tenants, Zalneraitis said. However, a stroll through the mall indicates the mall continues to have trouble filling smaller spaces in the mall’s middle. At least eight storefronts were vacant during a visit last month.

Ehlers said the mall is working to fill the vacancies.

“The mall has undergone a major renovation, and we have been bringing in new anchor tenants,” he said in an email message. “We are now shifting our focus to the smaller specialty tenant spaces with our leasing efforts. Specialty tenants want to follow the anchors, so this is the normal progression of an upgrade and leasing of a mall.”

A Christopher & Banks clothing store is moving within the mall to a larger space and will be reopening soon, Ehlers said.

The mall also is working to expand its selection of large stores outside the mall building. A sign advertises a vacant lot next to Boot Barn, which is in a building west of the mall and is owned by them. Ehlers said the mall has been waiting to develop the parcel while the mall itself is renovated.

Many of the development controversies about the mall stem from inadequate road access when the mall was built, said Greg Hoch, the city’s director of planning and community development.

The location now home to Mercury wasn’t developed until recently in large part because of road access and an ill-defined easement, he said. U.S. Highway 550/160 was built past the mall shortly after construction on the mall itself was completed.

“In the process of doing the mall, nobody dedicated any roads through the mall, which set the stage for years of conflict later,” Hoch said.

When the city wanted to extend the Animas River Trail behind the mall’s property, Hoch said it was difficult to work with the owners, forcing engineers to come up with creative solutions to route the trail.

“They’ve never been typically cooperative in wanting to do anything,” Hoch said. “Maybe that’s their nature. Maybe they just thought there’s no benefit to them in working with the city. They didn’t, so we came up with solutions that didn’t involve them.”

Ehlers said Durango Mall did not oppose the trail extension.

Durango Mall is owned by Richard and Kim Rathbun, who live in California, through a limited-liability company, Durango Mall LLC. The company is registered in Danville, California.

The Rathbuns did not respond to interview requests for this story. Ehlers, their longtime attorney, responded to questions on their behalf.

He said the mall doesn’t seek out litigation.

“No one likes lawsuits or threats of lawsuits, including Durango Mall LLC, the owner and operator of the Durango Mall,” he said. “The ownership is committed to work out issues in an informal, but business-like manner. The current La Quinta project has demonstrated the success of that approach.”

Built in 1981 by Canadian developer Ainbinder-Bramalea, the mall has changed over time. It has expanded to encompass more than 260,000 square feet of retail space. The stores that inhabit the mall have changed, too. Kmart closed in 2003, and it took nearly two years for the mall to fill that space. Even then, the mall struggled to keep tenants and attract shoppers. The manager said it suffered from competition with a mall in Farmington, an aging building and the arrival of Walmart. The mall underwent a $1 million renovation in 2000. It suffered a blow again in 2003 when a popular 18-lane bowling alley, which attracted a lot of patrons for the 15 years it was there, closed.

It hasn’t always been bereft of eating options, either. Lori’s at the Mall was a mainstay. It closed when the bowling alley did. The Brickhouse Café had a short-lived restaurant there. When the owner closed the original location at 1849 Main Ave., she blamed losses at the mall location for building up debt.

While the mall has changed, so has Durango. Consumers have become increasingly aware of buy-local efforts such as the popular Be Local coupon book. Main Avenue’s retail core has continued to thrive.

Ehlers said the mall is trying to contribute something different.

“Durango Mall’s focus is to provide our community with options that are otherwise not generally available in Durango,” he said. “There has been a lot of leakage of money from Durango to Farmington, Albuquerque, Denver and the Internet. Our goal is to bring the type of tenants to the mall that will allow shoppers to spend their money in Durango and support the community that they live in.”

The mall has endured for more than three decades and several economic downturns, and there is no suggestion it is going to close.

The mall is the only mall of its type in Southwest Colorado. Main Mall is downtown, but it’s a different type of retail environment, with no large national retailers. The closest similar mall is Animas Valley Mall in Farmington.

“I think it (Durango Mall) attracts a lot of people from outside the town,” Zalneraitis said. “People come from all over Southwest Colorado.”

The mall’s biggest challenge locally is public perception, he said.

“They don’t do themselves a lot of favors on the PR front,” he said.

cslothower@durangoherald.com

At mall, gumball machines outnumber eateries

In late 20th century America, two words achieved cultural primacy: “The mall.”

Asked whether the Durango Mall had achieved the same level of cultural and consumerist relevance to Durango residents in 2015 that “the mall” enjoyed in 1990s Los Angeles, some locals responded, “As if.”

Aimee Camberos, 20, said she comes to the Durango Mall every week to hunt through T.J. Maxx and Rue 21 for discounted designer goods.

“But that’s only two places. Lots of stores are just empty. And it has no food court,” she said.

Camberos said that when she lived in Denver, she and her friends went to malls all the time to “hang out.”

Yet, she never comes to Durango Mall merely to “hang out.”

“If we’re going to hang out, we’ll do that downtown on Main Avenue, where there’s lots of restaurants and stores and people,” she said.

While, perhaps, not teeming with the kind of activity seen on Durango’s most prominent commercial thoroughfare, the Durango Mall isn’t without its charms.

“It’s not bad looking,” Sheila Neil said. “The real thing is that it needs more big stores, like Dillards. And it used to have a bowling alley and a restaurant. It was amazing. Now, there’s nowhere to eat.”

In an email, the mall’s attorney Denny Ehlers said, “Durango Mall recognizes that food is an important component to a shopping environment and that there are opportunities in this area.”

Neil said “the mall” isn’t passé.

“I’m from Fort Lauderdale. We do everything at the mall. There are even doctors’ and dentists’ offices in the mall, and gyms,” Neil said.

And Neil said Durangoans would appreciate a warm, large, indoors place to buy goods in wintertime.

Some shoppers said journeying through Durango Mall could be jarring, as each shop plays its own music. Indeed, throughout the mall, there are musical conflict zones, often several feet long, in which two, and sometimes three, corporate soundtracks play simultaneously, inducing a state of overstimulation more likely to interest the bright minds behind Guantanamo Bay prison than promote spending.

In an email, Ehlers said when it comes to “sound conflicts from music sources within the Durango Mall, that is a concern that has not been brought to the attention of management by tenants or customers. However, we will certainly look into the issue.”

A Durango Mall shopper gave pragmatic advice for management.

On a recent Saturday, Pagosa Springs’ John Depp was browsing the cluster of gumball machines at the J.C, Penney end of the mall’s foyer.

He said he isn’t overly impressed by Durango Mall.

Though Durango Mall has stores Depp likes shopping at – Sports Authority, GNC and especially Bed Bath & Beyond – he thought Durango Mall suffered for not having many food options besides the gumball machines.

cmcallister@durangoherald.com