Pine Ridge Mall cuts check to Bannock Development Corporation

The Pine Ridge Mall presented the Bannock Development Corporation a $3,000 check Monday morning, in an effort to “bring more value to the community.”

Mall General Manager Drake Taylor said that the two groups have a lot in common.

“We both want to bring value to the community. We both want to bring new businesses to the community and that’s why we’re contributing,” Taylor said.

Investments like this allow the Bannock Development Corp. to enhance the community’s economy, according to the group’s President and CEO John Regetz.

“That means growing our existing companies and the primary jobs that they have and then recruiting new companies into the area,” Regetz said.

The Pine Ridge Mall hasn’t had the easiest time recently. The Mall lost one of its anchors, Sears, a few years back and will be losing another, Shopko, in May.

Despite the losses, Taylor said the mall has evolved to stay vibrant and relevant.

“We are aggressively leasing space. As you walk through the mall, you notice that our occupancy is high despite recent closures,” he said.

Two notable new occupants are Planet Fitness and the Gem Prep Charter School.

Gem Prep is taking over the former Sears location and Planet Fitness signed a lease with the mall within 30 days of the Herbergers closure.

According to Taylor, both will bring more people and attention to the mall.

“Planet Fitness alone brings hundreds of people to the property every single day. It helps build awareness and attention to the property. And Gem Prep is another way of providing value to the community,” he explained.

Regetz sees the innovation of the mall as encouragement for further development in the area.

“They are creating more activity here, which means they’ll have more customers, but also they’ll have more purpose for this facility,” Regetz explained. “That’s gonna lead to more investment in the community and that’s a great development.”

Looking forward to things like the Northgate Project, Regetz said it’s similar to the Mall, with people making an investment “into the facilities, infrastructure, sites, that can accommodate investment.”

“So with Northgate development, we’re looking at the availability of housing, as well as retail and commercial space so that when we have companies that are locating here, when they are asking about where are out people going to live, what kinds of housing do we have available, now we have a greater variety of offerings to support those companies,” Regetz said.