North side retail boom: Can the area handle it all?

Retail follows rooftops, and theres no better example than Colorado Springs fast-growing north side and northern El Paso County.

Five retail centers totaling nearly 5 million square feet are open, under construction or planned within about eight miles of each other between Colorado Springs and Monument, along or near the Interstate 25 corridor.

They range from the 30-year-old Chapel Hills Mall to Copper Ridge at Northgate, a newcomer whose developer announced in February that Bass Pro Shops would be the projects first anchor.

The attraction for developers and retailers to the north side: Annual household incomes in far north ZIP code areas ranged from an average of about $67,000 to nearly $113,000 in 2011 making them among the highest in the Pikes Peak region, according to Springs-based Norwood Development Groups marketing brochure for its InterQuest Marketplace shopping center.

Thousands of those upper-end households, meanwhile, sprang up over the past 25 years on the Springs north and northeast sides, the Tri-Lakes communities of Monument, Palmer Lake and Woodmoor, and unincorporated El Paso County areas north of town. More housing is on the way.

But as retail centers battle for tenants and shoppers, and even as the north side has grown dramatically, some real estate experts wonder if that one area of the Pikes Peak region can absorb the surge of big boxes, smaller stores and restaurants.

Is there enough demographics, enough population, enough income in order to support it? Thats the trick, said John Egan, a broker with NAI Highland Commercial Group. I worry we dont have enough density to support all of those developments up along that corridor at full capacity.

Home construction has picked up locally this year, yet the pace of building remains far behind levels of seven to eight years ago.

To get every one of them (retail centers) developed as envisioned will absolutely take more rooftops, said Patrick Kerscher, a broker with Landmark Commercial Group. Will there be portions of each one that get done? Probably. But I dont know that youll have 100 percent occupancy and 100 percent completion on all those development plans for quite some time.

How long? At least a decade, Kerscher said.

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North side retail boom: Can the area handle it all?