The two largest buildings at The Streets at SouthGlenn have been dark for years. Macy's closed its north-end store in March 2022, and the Sears on the south end shut down in 2019. Both now have a stated next use, and it is housing. Denver Gazette covered the Macy's final day, and the Denver Post reported the Sears closing.
The City of Centennial's own figures show this conversion was planned for. SouthGlenn's master plan sets a retail minimum, and the center has enough retail space outside the two dead anchors to stay above it. Swapping both boxes for apartments does not shrink the shopping district below the floor the city requires. What the plan does control is what each end has to give back in exchange.
The retail floor, using the city's own numbers
The City's Streets at SouthGlenn project page lists the rules that govern the site.
| Figure from the City of Centennial | Square feet |
|---|---|
| Retail space the master plan requires | 621,000 |
| Leasable retail space at the center today | 948,853 |
| Former Macy's and Sears buildings combined | about 307,000 |
| What's left if both anchors leave retail use | about 642,000 |
The last row is simple subtraction from the city's numbers. It leaves roughly 21,000 square feet above the required minimum. That is not a big cushion. It is less than a tenth of what the two anchors held. But it means the shops, restaurants and grocery along the center's interior streets are what keep SouthGlenn above its floor. The empty boxes stopped counting in practice years ago.
The housing side has a cap too. The plan allows 1,125 residential units across the whole center. The Portola at SouthGlenn already has 214 of them. That leaves 911 units to share between the two anchor sites, and the first proposal would use a large part of that.
The north end: 358 apartments where Macy's stood
Alliance Residential Company has proposed a five-story building with 358 apartments on the former Macy's site. According to the City's September 2026 update, a formal application came in April 30 and is in planning review. The unit count has already changed once. Denver7 reported in April 2026 on an earlier concept with 361 units.
If approved as filed, the Macy's building would use about 39% of the remaining unit allowance. That would leave 553 units for the Sears parcel and anything else on the site.
The city opened a public comment forum on the proposal, and it collected 436 comments before the April 22, 2026 deadline. Some commenters supported filling a vacant big-box building. Others raised concerns about more housing, traffic, parking and keeping retail at the center. The applicant's responses answered several of those questions:
- Parking. Norris Design, the applicant's representative, said the structured garage would provide 1.56 spaces per unit and 1.03 spaces per bedroom. The master plan requires one space per bedroom.
- Retail in the building. The building would be residential only. The applicant said restaurants and retail would remain elsewhere on the block.
- Pricing. Project representatives said the apartments would be market rate with no designated affordable units.
- Walkability. The applicant described resident green space, sidewalks and plazas open to the public, and a new pedestrian alley.
The Centennial Citizen reported that residents also raised concerns about water capacity. It described the design as a masonry base with stucco and fiber-cement upper floors in warm, neutral colors.
On the north end, then, the trade is mostly about the street. A residential building with no shops would replace a store that once drew shoppers. Whether the plazas and the new pedestrian alley actually connect the building to the rest of the center is the design question the city's review will settle.
The south end: the Sears parcel comes with a park requirement
The Sears site is less far along. The City says the property owner is marketing it for residential redevelopment, and no development application has been filed.
The master plan already says what that redevelopment would have to include. At least 25,000 square feet of public open space is required on the Sears parcel, along the north side of E. Easter Ave. That space has to be built before the first residential building there can be occupied. The plan describes it as public open space, green space, passive recreation or common public space.
That sequencing matters. The park is a condition of occupancy, so it would arrive with the housing, not years later. For anyone who lives south of Easter Avenue, this is the clearest neighborhood benefit written into the plan so far. It is also the part of SouthGlenn's future that depends most on a buyer who hasn't been publicly named.
Height is set too. Both the Sears and Macy's parcels allow buildings up to 75 feet. No building anywhere in the center may exceed 100 feet. The tallest building today is the Portola, at about 85 feet, just north of the Sears building.
The middle sold in January, and the retail stays
The anchors aren't the only part of SouthGlenn that has changed hands. In January 2026, an entity affiliated with The Luzzatto Company bought a group of retail buildings for $28,075,000. The group included the blocks anchored by Whole Foods, Sephora and Old Navy. The seller was affiliated with Alberta Development Partners, according to trade reporting on the deal. The Denver Post reported in 2021 that Alberta had bought the Macy's parcel for $10 million in 2018.
The City describes the Luzzatto purchase as about 100,000 square feet, while the trade report puts the assembled buildings at 127,000. Either way, the City says no immediate tenant changes are expected. The purchase also left out the former Sears and Macy's properties and will not affect their redevelopment plans.
This ties back to the retail floor. The buildings Luzzatto bought are the occupied retail that keeps SouthGlenn above its 621,000-square-foot minimum. A new owner of the grocery and fashion blocks, combined with housing planned for the dead anchors, leaves the center with two clear roles. People would live at the ends and shop in the middle.
Traffic around the edges
The city studied the largest buildout first. A 2021 Traffic Impact Analysis modeled up to 1,071 new residential units, including 148 that were already approved but not built, plus up to 280,000 square feet of new entertainment, office and retail space. It concluded that the existing road network could absorb the added traffic at acceptable service levels.
The study called for changes at two intersections that people around the center use every day:
- Arapahoe Road and Vine Street. Signal timing changes are planned to keep traffic moving as regional traffic grows.
- University Boulevard and Davies Avenue. The study recommended making it right-in, right-out only, for safety and smoother traffic flow.
The study estimated that peak-hour traffic spilling into nearby neighborhoods would be about 10 cars or fewer per intersection. The City says these improvements are based on crash data and projected growth, not only on the proposed development. The full study is linked from the City's project page.
What has no date yet
The Macy's proposal has no public hearing date. The City's comment-forum timeline still lists both the review schedule and the approval vote as to be determined, and says a more defined timeline will follow once review moves forward. The Sears parcel has no application at all, so its required park along Easter Avenue has no construction date yet. Questions about the project can go to the City at [email protected].
For now, the center runs as it has. The Street Smarts program is open through April 30, 2027. Shoppers save receipts from SouthGlenn businesses to benefit participating local schools, with details on the center's events page.
If you own a home near Arapahoe and University and want to know what these plans could mean for your street before the hearings are scheduled, Front Range Collective tracks Centennial redevelopment filings and can walk you through them. Start Your Home Journey with a quick conversation.
