Conn's HomePlus opens Friday at Santa Fe Place
Jun. 17—Conn's HomePlus is scheduled to open Friday at Santa Fe Place, a move that could end 14 years of instability at the mall's western anchor.
The Woodlands, Texas-based electronics, furniture, appliance and home furnishings retailer fills a 39,850-square-foot space that was long the home of a Mervyn's department store.
After Mervyn's went out of business in 2008, the anchor space has bedeviled mall managers.
Sports Authority opened in the spot in 2013, creating a temporary solution before the national chain folded in 2016.
The empty space then served as a construction site for Zozobra until Traveler's Market and Harrell House Bug Museum moved in for most of 2021. Those businesses were asked to leave by Jan. 5 to make way for Conn's.
Santa Fe Place is nearly full, with one vacancy in a 20,000-square-foot space. Discussions for a tenant are underway, mall spokesman Antonio Guerrero said.
Guerrero added construction started last week for a long-awaited Rad Retrocade, first announced in February 2020. He did not provide an opening date for the Las Cruces-based arcade games, restaurant and bar businesses.
Since 2008, Conn's HomePlus has expanded its stores from just three states to 15 across the southern portion of the country. The company now has about 160 stores, with four in New Mexico — three in Albuquerque and one in Las Cruces.
Conn's opened its first Albuquerque store on Hotel Circle in 2012, with a second store following in 2014 on Coors Bypass and a third Albuquerque location on Central Avenue in 2016. A store opened in Las Cruces in 2013.
