Could this Colorado mall offer hope for Sunrise Mall redevelopment?

By Sara Beth Williams–
In an-online-shopping-centric era where so many malls have become “dead” or “ghost” malls, Sunrise Mall is far from the only mall property that has been considered for major redevelopment.

Last year, Citrus Heights City Councilmember Tim Schaefer visited Belmar Mall in Lakewood, Colorado, with the Sacramento Area Council of Governments (SACOG), and brought back information to the City Council on the success story of the revitalization project. He cited the Belmar Mall as a comparison model for what the Sunrise Mall property could someday become.

The Belmar Mall was once a standard mall called the Villa Italia Mall and had some of the same features that exist at Sunrise Mall, Schaefer said in a presentation to the City Council in August. The newly revitalized property is now “truly a mixed-use” property, Schaefer said, with office space and residential units over retail spaces, residential housing, senior housing, an outdoor ice rink that turns into a roller rink in the summer, outdoor sit-down restaurants, and more.

“When they rebuilt the mall, they attracted a lot of upscale new businesses,” Schaefer said, adding that the layout was “really, really nice” and that there are “no quick service restaurants” on the property, but a Chick-fil-A was built outside of the property.

In comparing Belmar to Sunrise Mall, Schaefer said the property of the Villa Italia is similar in size at around 100 acres, and the history is also similar to Sunrise Mall, with decline in the late 1990s and early 2000s and a “complicated” ownership, with one party that owned all the land, and one party that owned all the buildings.

Also similar to Citrus Heights, the city of Lakewood is a suburb of the state’s capitol region. However, Lakewood is larger in both size and land area, with 156,000 residents, compared to around 88,000 in Citrus Heights, as of the 2020 Census.

After the Belmar mall’s land was purchased by a new developer in 1999, a development plan was created, and the Villa Italia mall closed permanently in 2001. Demolition then began in December 2001, vertical construction began in April 2003, and phase 1 of redevelopment began in 2004, according to Schaefer.

Current photos at Belmar Shopping District’s website show a downtown-like district with a myriad of options for shopping, dining, entertainment, and housing. The website also lists local events, a photo gallery of sidewalk and street art and a map of murals located throughout the district.

“The city actually went out and sought developers and interested parties, which is very much the same thing we’re doing,” Schaefer said, referring to the process of attracting new development for the Sunrise Mall. “There’s not that I’ve seen nothing close to a comparison,” Schaefer said.

Last week, Mayor Jayna Karpinski-Costa confirmed with The Sentinel that the council is planning a trip to visit Belmar in Colorado in the spring, after Schaefer made the recommendation to the council in August.

“There is light at the end of the tunnel. I’m super optimistic about Sunrise Tomorrow,” Schaefer said, adding that he thinks the Sunrise Tomorrow Plan could “turn out better” than Belmar, and that it has more of a “regional draw.”

*This is part one of a two-part series. Subscribe to The Sentinel to read follow-up stories in The Sentinel’s Midweek Edition, which comes out Thursdays.