Officials at King Soopers admit they’ve never encountered this problem before.
“We’ve never made a multimillion-dollar proposal in a neighborhood and been met with opposition,” said Kelli McGannon, a company spokeswoman.
But such was the case Tuesday afternoon at the Sam Gary Library, where residents in the Stapleton neighborhood strenuously objected to that part of the Eastbridge Town Center.
“When the airport left, we were promised a neighborhood that was cutting-edge, completely different from anywhere else,” said Todd Ahlenius. “When the people who were supposed to deliver the goods abandon us, it’s very painful. This plan isn’t a lifestyle — it’s just a drive to the store.”
There was very little that King Soopers officials could do to mollify the crowd, which flooded a meeting room and spilled out into the library’s hallway. Everything from the size of the proposed parking lot to the proximity of a fuel center to nearby homes drew verbal barbs.
The Town Center would be near Martin Luther King Boulevard and Havana Street. Residents acknowledge the need for another grocery store in the area; currently, the closest store is another King Soopers, about a mile away. However, the hope was it would be something smaller and more organic than the big-box behemoth.
McGannon said the company isn’t into “cookie-cutter” design, adding that during the past two years, stores ranging from 30,000 to 125,000 square feet have been built, each with neighborhood desires in mind. On Tuesday, a proposal was made to reduce the size of the parking lot by 22 percent from a previous plan.
That really didn’t go over very well either.
More community forums are likely in the offing, but it’s clear that it will take a lot of compromise to reach an accord.
“For the last three or four years, we’ve reached out to every small grocer in the world, but the only grocer we could attract was this one,” said Jim Chrisman, one of the project developers. “We invested money trying to bring a vision to this neighborhood, and we’re not happy that it isn’t happening exactly like that.
“These people saw what we wanted to do, and now that they’re seeing something different. They’re not happy.”
Anthony Cotton: 303-954-1292, acotton@denverpost.com or anthonycottondp
