Glenwood Springs City Council denies tax rebate for Barnes and Noble at Meadows

A plan to bring a Barnes and Noble bookstore to Glenwood Meadows will move forward — if at all — without taxpayer support from the city.

Glenwood Springs City Council voted 5-0 Thursday night to deny a sales tax rebate request totaling $750,000 over seven years. The incentive was pitched by Glenwood Meadows developer Steve Shoflick of Miller Weingarten Realty, who has led the shopping center’s development for more than two decades.

Mayor Ingrid Wussow was absent. The remaining five councilors, along with Mayor Pro Tem Marco Dehm, reached a unanimous decision after over an hour of discussion and public comment.

The proposal would have returned a portion of future sales tax generated by the bookstore to the property owner. No current tax revenue would have been affected.

Shoflick said Barnes and Noble had agreed to lease the 24,000-square-foot space previously occupied by Bed Bath & Beyond, pending support from the city. He said the company was drawn to Glenwood as a regional hub but that the financials were difficult to close without help.

“We will do everything in our power to make it happen regardless,” Shoflick said. “But can I tell you we can bridge that gap? Not sitting here today, I cannot.”

The lease under consideration included a 10-year base term with three five-year renewal options. Store designs had not yet been drawn.

Shoflick described the new Barnes and Noble concept as a community hub — not just a place to buy books. He said it would include a Paper Source gift shop, a full café, and flexible seating to encourage gathering.

“This is not your old bookstore anymore,” Shoflick said. “They have recast themselves as entertainment and gathering.”

He argued that the Meadows development is still missing a central hangout spot.

“What we don’t have is a gathering place,” he said.

Shoflick said bringing Barnes and Noble to Glenwood would elevate the center’s tenant mix and draw more consistent traffic from locals and regional shoppers. He cited Glenwood’s changing retail landscape and noted that, historically, many big-box tenants — such as Sports Authority and Bed Bath & Beyond — have closed due to bankruptcy, not lack of local business.

He also said most municipalities in Colorado offer some form of incentive for national retailers and pointed to examples in Avon, Dillon, Silverthorne and Grand Junction.

“Incentives are part of the landscape in which we operate,” Shoflick said. “It’s just the competitive landscape we live in.”

Council members, however, expressed concern over offering public money to a national chain, especially in the absence of a formal policy or consistent standards.

“That’s not fair to the community,” Councilor Jonathan Godes said. “If we were getting something new, something exciting, something that didn’t compete — that would be a different conversation.”

“We don’t pick tenants,” added Councilor Sumner Schachter. “Whether we subsidize or not may become our role, but picking tenants is not our job.”

Councilor Erin Zalinski, a former local retailer herself, said she didn’t dislike incentives in general — but wanted to see them used in a more transparent and equitable way.

“I didn’t know that I could apply for anything when I opened my business,” Zalinski said. “We should use incentives sensitively and with thought.”

She and others pointed out that most small business owners don’t know city support programs even exist.

Councilor Mitchell Weimer said that without a clear process, council risks making subjective decisions that feel unfair — both to developers and local shop owners.

“I think ultimately we have to say no until we have more structure,” Weimer said. “So that we’re not flipping a coin every time.”

During public comment, several community members opposed the rebate request. Katie Hake, co-owner of Alpenglow Books in downtown Glenwood, said the proposal would directly harm her small, independent bookstore.

“I closed my store an hour early today so I could be here and present my case,” Hake said. “I think it is obvious that this proposal would directly and negatively impact our business.”

She said she and her husband opened their shop in 2024 without any financial help from the city.

“Spencer and I spent months constructing, sanding and staining bookshelves in our driveway,” she said. “We did that instead of asking the city to subsidize us.”

Hake said giving money to a corporation backed by a hedge fund, while local retailers are left to fend for themselves, sends the wrong message.

“If they cannot make enough money here and need taxpayer money to justify moving in, then they should not be here,” Hake said. “You would send a clear message to local small businesses and entrepreneurs, which is, you are not a priority and you are not valued.”

The Glenwood Meadows development is one of the city’s largest tax generators. It operates under a public improvement fee, or PIF, which helped fund infrastructure like roads and traffic signals when the project was first built. That fee expired at the end of 2024.

Glenwood Springs Community and Economic Development Director Hannah Klausman said the city has historically supported a limited number of incentives. The most recent was in 2017, when the city approved a rebate to bring in Marshall’s and expand Natural Grocers. That rebate, set at $975,000, was paid off in under five years.

Thursday’s vote followed another incentive denial earlier this month. On March 6, council rejected a $2 million sales tax rebate tied to a proposal to redevelop the former Safeway site on Grand Avenue with Harbor Freight and Arc Thrift Store.

Despite the council’s unanimous vote, the door remains open for the project to proceed without city assistance.

“This only relates to the tax initiative that was being requested,” Klausman said. “Barnes and Noble as a tenant — that decision is between the business and the property owner.”

Whether the bookstore ultimately opens in Glenwood Meadows will depend on what happens next in private negotiations.

“We don’t decide that,” Klausman said. “It’s a matter between the developer and the business at this point.”