A decade after it closed, a former Sears store in Cherry Creek is coming down.
Demolition is underway on the 150,000-square-foot department store building at 2375 E. First Ave., which sits behind Whole Foods and across from the Cherry Creek Shopping Center.
It’s the first of two notable building demolitions related to the Cherry Lane project being developed by Denver-based BMC Investments, in conjunction with Invesco Real Estate and Los Angeles-base investment firm Prism Places.
After demolishing Sears, crews will pull down the adjacent Crate & Barrel structure — that store closed in January — onto the Sears property. BMC CEO Matt Joblon told BusinessDen on Friday that both buildings should be down in the next 60 days.
Joblon had been hoping to start demolition in March, not June. But the Sears building had more asbestos than expected, which needed to be remediated before it could be torn down, he said. Cutting and capping the electric, water and sewer connections also took more time than planned.
A crew demolishes the former Sears building at 2375 E. First Ave. in Denver on June 12, 2025. (Hayden Kim/BusinessDen)
The Cherry Lane project is a partial redevelopment of the Clayton Lane project, which was completed in the mid-2000s.
The Sears will be replaced with a nine-story apartment building with 379 units, part of which will also cover the existing parking garage behind it along Second Avenue. A six-story building with 59,000 square feet of office space will go where Crate & Barrel stood.
Sears closed the Cherry Creek store in 2015. (BusinessDen file)
An existing service alley that partially penetrates the site will be turned into a pedestrian walkway that runs from First to Second. Throughout it all will be 132,665 square feet of space for high-end retail and restaurant tenants.
The Whole Foods store and its parking will remain unaffected, along with upper-floor condominium units along Clayton Lane. A second phase of the project will involve buildings between Clayton Lane and Detroit Street.
In other Denver demolition news, the former Bonnie Brae Tavern along University Boulevard recently came down, as did the onetime Royal Palace Motel near the intersection of Colfax Avenue and Colorado Boulevard. And in May, Houston-based Hines told BusinessDen that demolition was “imminent” for Carmen Court, a condominium building at the center of a local preservation fight in 2020.
An aerial view showing the footprint of Phase I and Phase II redevelopment of Cherry Lane, the mixed-use site known up to this point as Clayton Lane. (Courtesy Tryba Architects)
A decade after it closed, a former Sears store in Cherry Creek is coming down.
Demolition is underway on the 150,000-square-foot department store building at 2375 E. First Ave., which sits behind Whole Foods and across from the Cherry Creek Shopping Center.
It’s the first of two notable building demolitions related to the Cherry Lane project being developed by Denver-based BMC Investments, in conjunction with Invesco Real Estate and Los Angeles-base investment firm Prism Places.
After demolishing Sears, crews will pull down the adjacent Crate & Barrel structure — that store closed in January — onto the Sears property. BMC CEO Matt Joblon told BusinessDen on Friday that both buildings should be down in the next 60 days.
Joblon had been hoping to start demolition in March, not June. But the Sears building had more asbestos than expected, which needed to be remediated before it could be torn down, he said. Cutting and capping the electric, water and sewer connections also took more time than planned.
A crew demolishes the former Sears building at 2375 E. First Ave. in Denver on June 12, 2025. (Hayden Kim/BusinessDen)
The Cherry Lane project is a partial redevelopment of the Clayton Lane project, which was completed in the mid-2000s.
The Sears will be replaced with a nine-story apartment building with 379 units, part of which will also cover the existing parking garage behind it along Second Avenue. A six-story building with 59,000 square feet of office space will go where Crate & Barrel stood.
Sears closed the Cherry Creek store in 2015. (BusinessDen file)
An existing service alley that partially penetrates the site will be turned into a pedestrian walkway that runs from First to Second. Throughout it all will be 132,665 square feet of space for high-end retail and restaurant tenants.
The Whole Foods store and its parking will remain unaffected, along with upper-floor condominium units along Clayton Lane. A second phase of the project will involve buildings between Clayton Lane and Detroit Street.
In other Denver demolition news, the former Bonnie Brae Tavern along University Boulevard recently came down, as did the onetime Royal Palace Motel near the intersection of Colfax Avenue and Colorado Boulevard. And in May, Houston-based Hines told BusinessDen that demolition was “imminent” for Carmen Court, a condominium building at the center of a local preservation fight in 2020.
An aerial view showing the footprint of Phase I and Phase II redevelopment of Cherry Lane, the mixed-use site known up to this point as Clayton Lane. (Courtesy Tryba Architects)
