K&N Investors Colorado LP didn’t have to refresh the facade of Valley Plaza Shopping Center, 2454 U.S. Highway 6&50.

Yet earlier this year the owner of Valley Plaza decided to invest in such a project to keep the shopping center, which was built in 1982, vibrant, welcoming and relevant. Not just for customers, but tenants as well.

David Foltz, one of the members of the Foltz family that has owned Valley Plaza for about 35 years, lives in New Jersey, but he said his family loves Grand Junction and wants to contribute in more ways to the community.

That includes starting a scholarship at Colorado Mesa University for School District 51 students and becoming a sponsor of the Grand Junction Economic Partnership.

And it includes the refreshing of Valley Plaza’s exterior and premises, where 23 businesses operate.

“We’re gonna spend more than $1 million sort of reskinning Valley Plaza,” David Foltz said. “We replaced all the exterior, we’re gonna do all the sidewalks and really kind of refresh something that was built back in (1982). And again we think that’s gonna help drive customers to the tenants and create a more positive experience.”

Foltz said K&N Investors used local people to the greatest extent possible to do the renovation work.

He also noted most of the tenants, even the ones that are franchises, “are really local. I’d say at least 80 percent of the tenants are local.”

Foltz said K&N Investors obviously wants to make money, and the recent investment in the shopping center is meant to ultimately reward K&N Investors. But it’s also about taking care of the commercial tenants, because that’s good for business.

“I think we at one point were just too focused on what stuff costs and not paying enough attention to really what it looks like,” Foltz said. “And so I think I’ve kind of woken up to the pride of ownership, and I really want something that my family is proud of, and I think updating it to more current stuff, taking away some stucco and adding this nice steel and stone, I think it’s gonna make a customer feel better about the experience of coming to Valley Plaza.”

Foltz said the building is “like brand new to the extent we can make it brand new,” and he thinks that will drive traffic to the shopping center.

“I think it will reinforce the buying decision that ‘I came to the right place, because I know I feel good about where I am and what it looks like,’” Foltz said of the customers.

He added K&N Investors wants to do a great job for its existing tenants and send a message to those who may one day reside at Valley Plaza.

“As stores open up, which they’re bound to do, I hope local businesses are kind of paying attention,” he said. “We would like them to want to be tenants at Valley Plaza and know that we really care. … we’re really paying attention.”

Along those lines, Valley Plaza has no empty commercial spaces as three new tenants and an existing one filled the vacancies that existed earlier in the year. The newcomers are Prime IV, Crush Salon & Day Spa and REMAX Rise Up. Meanwhile, Play It Again Sports took over the unit next to it, which previously was occupied by Scotland Yard Cigar & Spirits.

Drawing in customers is important as Foltz said Valley Plaza as a local shopping destination can be and do what online retailers can’t.

“We want local businesses where people have to show up, and then maybe they’ll see another store, and there’ll be synergy,” he said. “You know, we joke about, ‘Dad can come buy a gun, and Mom can can get waxed,’ but I do think if they’re there already in Valley Plaza, they’ll go look in a Runway (Fashion Exchange) and see if I can pick up some clothing. Or, if I have kids in sports, there’s a place there for them, too.

“We hope for some synergies, and we really want local businesses where, when you come in as a customer, you know who’s running the store.”

Prime IV comes to Grand Junction

Owners Scott McCoy and John Fager owned a Prime IV franchise in metro Denver, but McCoy said they opened a Prime IV in Valley Plaza in February, then sold their Denver business and home to move to Grand Junction in April.

“We really like it out here, and so rather than going back and forth and killing ourselves on I-70, literally, we decided just to divest everything in Denver and move here,” McCoy said. “The commitment is here, absolutely.”

McCoy described Prime IV as an “IV therapy spa brand” based in Colorado Springs, and it has four product lines.

“One is vitamin, mineral and amino acid drips, which is by far the largest product line,” he said. “We also do NAD (nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide), which is a co-enzyme, and then we have hormone replacement therapy, and we have weight-loss peptides.”

McCoy described the average Prime IV client as 30 to 60 years old and a person with a fast-paced life, “Type A folks that don’t want to slow down and are finding maybe that their energy isn’t as good as it used to be. Maybe their sleep’s not as good as it once was. Infection hits them harder than they would like, or their skin isn’t what they want.

“So, if they’re patient through IV therapies, they can often find the energy levels come back, sleep can be improved, wrinkles can go away, and sickness involves just taking ibuprofen or Sudafed rather than being in bed for days.”

He said most clients are members, paying a monthly fee to come in for IV drips once or twice a month.

“It’s actually often a time question, not a money question, really, for them,” he said.

He said they have slightly more women than men for clients, and they “have a lot of couples that come in, or even families.”

McCoy said he and Fager have found Grand Junction to be “very friendly and inviting” and ready for what Prime IV provides.

“I think folks in general here are open-minded to the concept of not just prescription drugs and having that be the basis of your wellness routine, that there can be other alternatives, if you will, practices that you can explore,” he said. “I think they may be a little bit more open to that here than in Denver.” 

McCoy added the real benefits of Prime IV’s services come from trying them for several months, and clients should keep that in mind.

“It takes a while with all this to build up in your system, to really get you to peak replenishment of nutrients,” he said. “So for this co-enzyme NAD, or even to get used to the weight-loss peptides, even to get your level right on the hormone (replacement), it’s a bit of a process. … For a lot of what we do, it does require a little bit of patience and a little bit of getting in a routine of coming in here once or twice a month.”

Crush Salon & Day Spa relocates

Crush Salon & Day Spa spent 10 years on Main Street in downtown Grand Junction, but owners Sammi Stucky and Jessica Beiriger hope to spend their next 10 years or more at Valley Plaza after opening there in May.

Stucky said they started looking for a new home for Crush because downtown was losing its appeal. Among the reasons they gave were traffic and parking being affected by changes to Fourth and Fifth streets downtown.

They found a unit available in Valley Plaza and pounced on it, then renovated the space in three weeks.

“Literally floor to ceiling, full remodel,” Stucky said.

The square footage, Stucky said, “is a little smaller, but I feel that the layout is better utilized than the old space. … Our old space is great, but it was very old. It’s a very old building. This is kind of just a better layout, more modernized, I feel.”

Now, they have greater visibility and accessibility on a busy highway, U.S. 6&50, and 24 1/2 Road, which has Mesa Mall across the street from Crush Salon & Day Spa.

“You have to stop and look at us, whichever way you’re going,” she said. “And our drive-through traffic and our walkthrough traffic has been like a hundred times better, being over here.”

She said the number of stores at Valley Plaza brings plenty of people and the potential for new customers. For example, next-door business Red Wing Shoes “gets a ton of people,” Stucky said, “so we get a lot of people that are like, ‘Oh, what’s this? What’s over here?’”

She added, “So many people come through here, obviously because there’s so many businesses, that I think we get a lot better exposure, just the drive-by traffic and stuff. Like, this place is crazy all the time. Oh, yeah, this is good.”

Another bonus stemming from the move to Valley Plaza is Crush kept all of its services and added some.

“We’re more than just a salon and a spa,” Stucky said. “We’re much more medical science and things, lasers, Botox. We’re outsourcing a lot of medical science and things, too… We do piercings now. We offer jewelry now. We’re just broadening our horizons. It’s not just a place to get your hair done anymore. Like, it’s a real hangout.”

REMAX Rise Up fills final vacancy

The last vacancy in Valley Plaza was seized by REMAX Rise Up owner Mark Towner, whose fledgling real-estate agency is growing fast and has the potential to keep growing in its new space.

Towner and nine other real-estate agents left Keller Williams at the end of December, and Towner made it a point to say, “Keller Williams, they were a great place to work. They were a great stepping stone. It just wasn’t where we wanted to go.”

REMAX Rise Up launched without a permanent home, which meant a temporary site for a couple months, followed by agents working from their cars and homes.

“We were all kind of homeless for four or five months,” Towner said.

But “just about the time I gave up on finding the perfect spot,” he found what he was looking for at Valley Plaza, Suite 104, which had been occupied by Cedar Point Health Grand Junction Urgent Care Center until it moved to Clifton in July 2024.

“I was looking for a space that had a kind of a coffee-shop feel, so we weren’t limited by the space we had as far as the amount of agents we could bring on,” Towner said of what he envisioned for the agency. “Most of the big brokerages in town have these sprawling offices with lots of individual office space, and that in my opinion, from my experiences, that kind of creates that individual island that’s kind of lonely and not good for work ethic and morale.

“And so I wanted a space that was kind of a central place with offices surrounding this common area, a lot of glass, so people could see people working, you get to feel that there’s other people in this together with you.”

Towner said he was able to get into the space prior to K&N Investors deciding to remodel the entire shopping center’s exterior.

“Fortunately for me, I was able to get in here before instead of after, at least for value-wise,” he said. “I invested everything I made in the last couple of years that I’ve saved up with the team to build a space that we could be proud of, and that looks state of the art. And a great work environment that is kind of cutting edge and different than what the rest of the city, at least, is used to with real estate.

“I love the high exposure on the street, great parking, good visibility. The average age of a person doing a transaction is 53 years old, and a lot of those people want to do face-to-face business, and it’s nice to have a place that’s easy to recognize, easy to get to.”

With the buildout completed, REMAX Rise Up officially opened its offices at Valley Plaza on June 1, and the addition of more agents gives the agency 23 employees.

Towner said the office space will allow the ranks to swell to 40 to 50 agents.

There also was room to provide office space for Ambassador Mortgage Group, whose broker/owner is Robin Smith, Towner’s future mother-in-law.

Play It Again Sports expands footprint

When Scotland Yard Cigar & Spirits closed its business in 2024 and exited Valley Plaza, next-door neighbor Play It Again Sports didn’t have to think twice about leasing the newly available space.

The sports-equipment store had been in desperate need of more floor space to display items that were sitting in an off-site storage facility.

“It was so jam-packed, just in the front,” Play It Again Sports co-owner Brandy Miller said. “But ultimately, we needed more space for hockey, golf, essentially everywhere, because we had so much product that was not on the floor that we had available. So, we were like, ‘Hey, we’ve got to get this out somehow,’ so that people could see all the options that we had instead of just a section of it.”

The timing of Scotland Yard’s departure was serendipitous for Play It Again Sports, but utilizing the new space took time, much more than Miller expected. Renovating the new area included creating a large opening to go from Play It Again’s existing suite to the additional space, and Play It Again had to tear out a lot of the work Scotland Yard had invested in the space.

“It took longer than we would have liked, to say the least,” Miller said. “It was supposed to take like two months.”

Instead, she said, it took about four to five months and cost the store having the additional space ready by Black Friday. But Play It Again Sports was able open the new retail space to catch part of the Christmas shopping season.

“We were still able to capitalize a little bit that way,” she said. The capitalizing continued into the new year and hasn’t stopped.

Miller said the customer count is up noticeably, as are revenues year over year each month in 2025.

“Month to month, it’s been anywhere between 16 to 23 percent, but it’s always up, so that’s great,” she said. “We’ve just been increasing all of our numbers. Our goal is always 12 percent, 12 to 13 percent, and we’re at 16 to 23, so that’s great.” 

The additional space helped the most with displaying exercise equipment, such as various cardio machines and weight racks, items that require space and now have it.

“It was primarily for that,” Miller said, “but also to expand our other sports, because we had more to offer. We just didn’t have any way of showing it.”

The new area includes storage space, lessening the amount of equipment stored off site.

“We could take more of our stuff out of our warehouse and have it here for restocking purposes, so that I wasn’t constantly running to the warehouse,” Miller said.

While Play It Again Sports is known for selling used equipment, when there aren’t enough used products available, the store brings in new items, and Miller said the amount of new items has expanded.

In addition to products, Play It Again Sports is offering more services, such as skate sharpening and regripping golf clubs.

Miller said the store hired two more employees, because it needs the extra hands.

BUSINESSES THAT OCCUPY THE VALLEY PLAZA

The 23 businesses operating at Valley Plaza Shopping Center, U.S. 6&50, from the west end to the east end are:

• Prime IV
• Crush Salon & Day Spa
• Red Wing Shoes 

REMAX Rise Up

• Ambassador Mortgage Group
• Sunflower & Rose Vintage & Decor
• AT&T
• Top Shot Guns & Ammo
• Avis Rent A Car
• Budget Car Rental
• AAA Insurance/Travel
• Runway Fashion Exchange
• Once Upon A Child
• Play It Again Sports
• Visiting Angels Living Assistance Services
• Wax It
• Dry It Blow Dry Salon
• MTS – Mountain Temp Services
• Wild Birds Unlimited
• Salon Centric
• The Ink Store
• The Spa Nails
• Tequilas Mexican Restaurant