In 1980, I was a 10-year-old Durango kid who loved riding horses, reading books and learning foreign languages. Sometime during that year, some investor opened the Durango Mall. My family had long been associated with retail work, including one grandmother who worked at Woolworth’s. My grandfather owned a sporting goods store and one grandmother worked at J.C. Penney’s downtown. Now as an adult, I live and work in Durango, and wonder what on God’s green earth happened to our local businesses? The mall is an atrocity with about five stores. The folks who now own it live in California, and have no interest in its impact on this community or on its growth or success.
Here is my suggestion to Durango voters. If you want to have a thriving economy, then build it. Demand that local businesses be owned by locals. No out-of-state property owners or storefronts. I would challenge the Rathdrums to stop by sometime. Options for space rentals in small malls should be more affordable than rent or mortgage in California. A full mall caters to families, kids and has diversity. You should be sued to repay Durango’s money.
We want our town back and we will support shopping local the way it should be done.
Christa Turnell
Durango
