Evan Gart named new president of Gart Properties, looks to expand operations outside Colorado

There’s a new man at the helm of Gart Properties.

Evan Gart has been promoted to president of the Denver-based company, which owns properties around Colorado.

The 34-year-old takes over the top job from Mark Sidell, who has been named vice chairman of the company’s board. Sidell stepped into the president role in 1999, just a handful of years after Gart Properties was founded.

The Gart name has been known throughout Colorado for decades. Evan’s great-grandfather Nathan Gart, whose signature is now the company’s logo, opened a pawn shop in downtown Denver in 1928. It evolved over the years and generations into a chain of Gart Bros. Sporting Goods stores, including the signature store in a building known as the Sports Castle at 10th Avenue and Broadway.

The family sold its stake in the chain in 1993, and former Gart Properties that same year. A decade later, the Gart Bros. chain became part of Sports Authority, which went out of business in 2016.

Evan Gart joined Gart Properties nine years ago, starting as an analyst when the company moved into a fund model.

“I’ve been running the day-to-day for about two years now,” he said, while Sidell focused on the big picture.

Working for the family business was never an expectation — five of the seven members of Evan’s generation don’t — and there were two rules for those who did want to join, he said. They had to work somewhere else first. And there had to be a position that suited them.

Evan’s cousin Alex Gart, for instance, runs Gart Capital Partners, the family’s private equity firm. Its holdings include 38 brick-and-mortar workwear stores along the West Coast that operate as Work World and Shoeteria.

Gart Properties will soon sell its most prominent local holding, downtown’s struggling Denver Pavilions mall. Denver’s Downtown Development Authority expects to close on its $37 million purchase of the mall this month.

Gart also owns the Village Shopping Center in Boulder, which is anchored by McGuckin Hardware, and real estate around the Powderhorn ski area near Grand Junction.

Retail properties have always been the focus of the company’s portfolio, with 1.5 million square feet even after the Pavilions sale goes through. Less than 5% of Gart retail space is vacant, Evan Gart said.

“There’s really few landlords who know at scale what it is to be a tenant,” he said.

In addition to Gart Bros. Sporting Goods, the Gart family also founded the Specialty Sports Venture chain in the 1990s, which joined forces with Vail Resorts later that decade. The ski resort operator bought out the Gart stake in 2010.

While all of Gart Properties’ holdings are in Colorado, Evan Gart doesn’t expect that to remain the case.

“The primary focus will always be our own backyard in Colorado, but it’s become extremely competitive,” he said.