Denton: H&M replacing Niketown

H&M will replace the Niketown in the Denver Pavilions, says Bill Denton, the original developer of the Pavilions.

Some people are saddened by the pending departure of Niketown in the Denver Pavilions along the 16^th Street Mall. But Bill Denton isn’t one of them.

Denton, principal of the Entertainment Development Group Inc., was the original developer of the Denver Pavilions and first brought Niketown Denver to the center as one of its original anchors.

Denton, in a phone interview with InsideRealEstateNews today, said that Niketown had run its course.

H&M coming

And he said it will be replaced by what he considers a much better tenant for the Pavilions and downtown – H&M – a high-end fashion retailer based in Sweden, whose full name is Hennes & Mauritz.

“I understand H&M is going into the space,” Denton said. “That what I was told and I believe is true. I think it will be an improvement over Niketown. It’s got that high-end apparel fashion glitter and it is going to be very good for Pavilions, as well as for downtown Denver.”

He said H&M typically takes 25,000 square feet of space, while the Niketown Denver, which will close in mid-May, is 30,000 square feet.

“Maybe in this case they will take the entire building, or maybe they will just take most of it,” Denton said from Houston, where he now lives.

Niketown’s time is up

Denton said that it was time that Nike retired Niketown.

“My own personal opinion is that they just lost interest in it,” Denton said. “I think Denver was the last Niketown in the world. It was a concept they were really excited about when they opened, but it sort of played itself out. Times have changed. In retail, things are hot one day and they are gone the next.”

Indeed, Denton, whose group and bankers sold the Pavilions to the Denver-based Gart Properties and ING Clarion Partners in 2008 for $94.5 million, said he felt a much greater emotional loss when Virgin Records, another original anchor at Pavilions, closed in 2009.

“I was more sad when Virgin Records closed, and just sort of disappeared off the face of the earth,” Denton said. “That had much more of a sentimental attachment to me than anything else. I happened to know the people at Virgin Records really well, and I really liked the people. So that meant much more to me on a personal level.”