Metro North Mall partnership dissolved

By Ray Weikal

A business partnership formed to redevelop Metro North Mall has ended in what representatives are calling an amicable divorce.

MD Management of Mission, Kan., and Alberta Development Partners of Greenwood Village, Colo., both decided last week the time was right to dissolve their joint partnership over the Metro North Mall project, representatives from both companies said.

The move was a mutual “business decision,” according to Greg Walker of MD Management.

“Nobody was throwing food at each other,” he said.

Money to finance the project was getting expensive and hard to find, according to Kerri Anderson of Alberta Development Partners. Company officials thought other projects closer to home took priority over Metro North Mall.

“For us, it was the current challenges in the credit market that led to our decision,” Anderson said. “It’s something that we are doing here in Denver.”

The venture’s breakup also affects a similar project in Kansas at Overland Park’s Metcalf South Mall, also owned by MD Management. The two companies will likely continue to work together on a project in Colorado, according to Walker.

“We were contemplating working with them in more than one city,” he said.

Metro North Mall’s redevelopment started in April 2007. That’s when owner MD Management brought Alberta Development Partners onboard to oversee a complete makeover of the dying mall.

Site plans released last spring included a 2.1 million-square-foot development called The Streets of Barrytowne. The plans included a movie theater and entertainment complex, grocery store and about 1,200 planned residential units.

Alberta Development Partners is focused on “regional retail shopping centers, mixed-use commercial and residential projects,” according to its Web site. It claims to have completed more than 200 projects in the last 15 years across the Western United States. It currently has four retail projects and one residential project in Colorado.

MD Management is still planning to complete an overhaul of Metro North Mall, according to Walker. When and how that will happen and what it will look like is unclear. Walker described it as a “mixed-use redevelopment.”

The project’s timing depends on many factors, Walker said.

“We don’t know how long it’s going to take to make department stores happy, cities happy, counties happy. There’s a lot of moving parts,” he said. “We’re working diligently on it.”

A lifestyle center planned by Alberta Development Partners for the Shoal Creek Valley subdivision in Kansas City North is also on hold until the local economy gets healthier. This project includes 850,000 square feet of “upscale shopping,” according the Shoal Creek Valley Web site, “designed to rival Kansas City’s finest pedestrian-friendly retail developments.”

Shoal Creek Valley is nestled southeast for Shoal Creek Parkway and Missouri Highway 152. It covers about 1,900 acres and is a Carma Developers project.

Staff writer Ray Weikal can be reached at 389-6637 or rayweikal@npgco.com.