Twin Peak’s Long Shot

Drive past the aging Twin Peaks Mall in Longmont and you’ll see a shopping center way past its prime. This is hardly news. Over the summer, the mall’s developer, Panattoni Development Co., and the city appeared close to entering into a partnership that would kick off a multi-phase new urbanism redevelopment project that could potentially reposition it in the marketplace. Not satisfied with seeing just the first phase of the plan, the city, in August, said it wasn’t ready to commit to pumping in tax dollars. Now Panattoni is ready to push forward with different plans—plans that would hamper a full-scale redevelopment. Panattoni, desperate to keep traffic flowing to the mall, is says it’ll sign leases with two major tenants, for a decade or more, if city dollars don’t flow soon. If that happens, you can kiss a major change to Twin Peaks goodbye.

[What’s Next] We don’t like a developer trying to bully the city, but Longmont’s leaders need to make sure they have a say in the project.