Crews works on getting a new King Soopers, at 20th St. and Chestnut Pl., ready for its opening in August, July 31, 2015. The, long-awaited grocery store, will serve the downtown community. (RJ Sangosti, The Denver Post)
Re: “King Soopers doors slide open in downtown Denver,” Aug. 13 business story.
Finally, a grocery store opens to serve a neglected LoDo neighborhood. Problem solved.
Yet it turns out that this amazing chance to create Colorado’s most unique and urban grocery store was blown by the suburban thinkers at King Soopers. They forgot to design a store that fit its neighborhood, which is dense and walkable, with thousands of neighbors just blocks away. Instead, they designed a suburban store, where car is still king.
The pedestrian experience is concrete and cars. Parking takes up most of the building, crushing the store and giving us a small handful of check-out lanes and narrow aisles. The store design is not any more “urban” or “Denver” than others, when it should be.
Despite its claims, King Soopers couldn’t be bothered to get to know our neighborhood well enough to design a store that truly belongs.
J. Dean Goldstein, Denver
The writer is an urban retail designer.
This letter was published in the Aug. 17 edition.
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