Walmart Neighborhood Market coming to Monaco/Evans (Denver: Home Depot, neighborhoods)

[cowboyxjon]

Hey, just thought I would pass this along: I overheard a conversation tonight that had to do with Walmart coming to the abandoned King Soopers store at Monaco & Evans in SE Denver. I didn't believe it until I looked it up, and sure enough, it's true and was announced last month. It's going to be a "neighborhood market", which is a smaller format grocery store and nowhere near the size of a Supercenter.

I know a lot of people despise Walmart, but I'm glad to see that something (generally) positive is going to happen at that shopping center -- it's pretty dead right now. Most of it is closed/abandoned.

Unfortunately there's a Kmart across the street, but hopefully both stores can co-exist, since this Walmart is supposed to be more like a grocery store.

[livecontent]

Originally Posted by cowboyxjon

Hey, just thought I would pass this along: I overheard a conversation tonight that had to do with Walmart coming to the abandoned King Soopers store at Monaco & Evans in SE Denver. I didn't believe it until I looked it up, and sure enough, it's true and was announced last month. It's going to be a "neighborhood market", which is a smaller format grocery store and nowhere near the size of a Supercenter.

I know a lot of people despise Walmart, but I'm glad to see that something (generally) positive is going to happen at that shopping center -- it's pretty dead right now. Most of it is closed/abandoned.

Unfortunately there's a Kmart across the street, but hopefully both stores can co-exist, since this Walmart is supposed to be more like a grocery store.

I think that is great news. A neighborhood is better when it is anchored by a supermarket. It is really disturbing when you see many older neighborhood in the City and the Suburbs where the local supermarket closes. It causes problems for long term and now elderly residents who came to depend on the familiarity and convenience of a local market. It gets worse as the neighborhood loses other stores that depend on the traffic to the larger market, and then we see more and more abandoned storefronts.

This smaller format stores are good for the urban areas where there is not much room to put full size stores. Also it keeps a neighborhood vibrant where the site was abandoned by a large supermarket when the site is no longer adequate for a larger store, and also when they want to move to a more affluent neighborhod.

Home Depot, King Sooopers, and Walmart are all proposing these smaller stores. They know that the cities are attracting new people, with money, who want to live in walkable denser neighborhood where land is at a premium. They are trying to compete with Tesco the large British grocery that is opening smaller upscale markets in the US called Fresh & Easy Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market™ - Home Page

Walmart wanted to introduce this small market to Denver in the old Elitch's site in North Denver when the site was redeveloped. Some narrow vision residents opposed it with their group think myopic mentalities. So the site stood abandoned for years until a Sunflower Market opened. I shop at this Sunflower Market for some produce but much of their products are yuppified and well overpriced, yet this market does serve some need for this growing gentrified area.

I am not against these expensive exclusive markets and I think there is a place and room for both, high scale and lower cost markets. We also need markets like Save a Lot, a basic low cost supermarket, which has helped keep neighborhoods functional and has opened stores in abandoned grocery stores in lower income neighborhoods http://save-a-lot.com/

Hopefully we can see more of these smaller groceries in the Downtown Core, which desperately needs a grocery market.

Livecontent