Thornton shopping center lands pickleball, indoor amusement park

Entertainment is the new retail. 

While big-box retailers such as Sears, Bed Bath & Beyond and Best Buy shutter stores across the country, entertainment businesses are scooping up their real estate. And the Denver metro area is no exception. 

North of Denver, both a pickleball concept and an indoor amusement park have signed leases in the Thornton’s Town Center at 9923 – 10003 Grant St. 

Picklr, a Utah-based pickleball franchise, leased 30,000 square feet in the strip mall that will house eight to 12 pickleball courts, a pro shop and bar. 

This will be Picklr’s second Colorado location; the company opened in Loveland in 2022. The following year, Chad Preiss, originally an investor in the company, bought the Loveland spot and franchise rights for Colorado and Cheyenne with Jim Lautzenheiser, Randy Halfpop and Kyle Yates.

The foursome want to open at least 16 Picklr locations across Colorado within four years. Preiss said where those locations will be is mostly dictated by available real estate.

Picklr franchisees Randy Halfpop, Jim Lautzenheiser, and Chad Preiss. (Courtesy Picklr)

“One of the challenges generally is finding good locations because you need anywhere from 20 to 40 thousand square feet, you need tall ceilings, wide column spacing,” Preiss said. 

In Thornton, Picklr’s space was formerly home to Gander Mountain. The outdoor retailer’s former space was divided into two retail fronts. Skyzone has moved into the other.

While big retailers closing has played in Picklr’s favor, Preiss said there is still a lot of competition for large space from other pickleball businesses and even retailers that are doing well, such as Burlington Coat Factory. 

“All those companies vying for the same space,” Preiss said. “Some of the macro drives affecting big-box retailers can play in our favor, but there are others that are doing great going after the same properties we would.”

Chris Gould, spokesman for Five Star Parks & Attractions, echoed the same. 

“I think retail is in kind of a transitional moment,” Gould said. “Some brick-and-mortar concepts are struggling and that’s created an opportunity for us in the entertainment space to move into the places where our customers already live.” 

Kentucky-based Five Star is the parent company behind Malibu Jack’s, an indoor amusement park business that’s moving into roughly 100,600 square feet just a few retail fronts down from Picklr. 

A rendering of a Malibu Jack’s location. (Courtesy Malibu Jack’s)

Malibu Jack’s was founded over 10 years ago and Five Star acquired it in 2022. This will be its first Colorado location. Some of its attractions include go karting, carnival rides, arcade games and bowling. 

Malibu Jack’s space in the Thornton Town Center space was originally three separate spots — a movie theater, gym and clothing store — and the amusement park is combining it into one. The company anticipates investing $12 million in the buildout, Gould said, which is the standard investment at all its new locations. 

Gould said Five Star will potentially open three more locations in the Denver metro area, but it hasn’t found any promising sites yet. 

Indoor ski center Snobahn recently opened its second location in a former Stein Mart elsewhere in Thornton. And the trend isn’t exclusive to the northern suburb. In Englewood, the children’s amusement park Lava Island is planning a second location at 139 W. Hampden, a former Big Lots, according to an April planning and zoning commission agenda.