King-sized King Soopers store planned in Fountain

Mar. 7—A new King Soopers grocery will anchor a 21-acre shopping center to be developed in Fountain, which the city's leaders and the project's developer say will provide more shopping and dining options for the fast-growing, but retail-starved Fountain Valley area south of Colorado Springs.

The store will be built southeast of Mesa Ridge Parkway and Syracuse Street on a site to be developed by Evergreen Devco, a real estate company with offices in Denver, Phoenix, California and Utah. The company, which has several existing residential, retail and commercial projects in the Colorado Springs area, will partner with the property's current owner on the new Fountain development.

Evergreen Devco hopes to start construction on the project this fall, while the King Soopers is targeted to open in 2025, said Russ Perkins, a principal in the real estate company's Phoenix office.

King Soopers spokeswoman Jessica Trowbridge said via email she didn't have additional details about the supermarket's newest store at this time; in a news release, she said King Soopers was "excited to join the Fountain community and to serve the residents of the Fountain Valley."

Evergreen Devco's shopping center in Fountain will mirror two other company projects in the Colorado Springs area.

In 2017, it opened the Claremont Ranch Marketplace, southeast of Constitution Avenue and Marksheffel Road in unincorporated El Paso County on Colorado Springs' east edge. Evergreen Devco also is developing Falcon Marketplace, northwest of Woodmen and Meridian roads in unincorporated Falcon, northeast of the Springs.

Both shopping centers are anchored by a 123,000-square-foot King Soopers Marketplace — a store about twice the size of the chain's traditional supermarkets. In addition to full lines of groceries, produce, meat and the like, marketplace stores sell clothing, shoes, dinnerware, small kitchen appliances and other items.

Evergreen Devco's shopping centers also are home to free-standing buildings for restaurants, coffee shops, auto part stores and service-oriented businesses, and both have multitenant, retail buildings.

The King Soopers at the new Fountain shopping center also will be a marketplace store, Perkins said. It will be joined by a half-dozen, standalone buildings; the real estate company is talking with three potential users, two of which are restaurants, he said.

For Fountain and the larger Fountain Valley, which includes unincorporated Security-Widefield, Fort Carson to the west and residential areas to the east, the new King Soopers and the larger retail center will broaden shopping for homeowners and residents in the region, said Kimberly Bailey, Fountain's economic development and urban renewal director.

The Fountain Valley has a population of about 109,000, she said; for grocery shoppers, the city of Fountain is home to two Walmart Supercenters and a Safeway store.

But Bailey said a city consultant has estimated the area loses $42 million a year in retail activity because residents still choose to shop in Colorado Springs and elsewhere, where there are more stores, restaurants and service-oriented businesses.

"We are significantly underserved from a valley perspective, and that's what retailers look at, is the trade area," Bailey said.

King Soopers will offer more than just a place for groceries, she added.

The store also will have a pharmacy, lifestyle products and other services, Bailey said. At the same time, UC Health plans to build a 23,000-square-foot medical facility across the street, on the west side of Syracuse; the health care system's decision to locate its facility at the site was contingent on a large anchor committing to the shopping center, she said.

"Once you have such a respectful anchor, brand that comes in, it in a way is a magnet for additional retailers to start considering the community for additional expansion," Bailey said.

Meanwhile, Fountain Municipal Transit, the city's mass transit system, will have a stop at the shopping center, which will provide an important link for King Soopers and other shoppers to connect to Colorado Springs via its Mountain Metro system, she said.

Perkins, of Evergreen Devco, says King Soopers' decision to locate at the company's shopping center underscores the growth of Fountain and the Fountain Valley. Up to now, some real estate developers and retailers have overlooked that growth, he said.

"We have been trying to fill the retail void in Fountain for probably the better part of eight years," he said. "We, Evergreen, have believed there was enough demand and a growth story here to attract the caliber of a King Soopers.

"Fountain has wrongfully been characterized for too long as a small town," Perkins added. "It's not. ... I prefer to think of it as just an underserved neighborhood. There is a great shopping center up the hill with Safeway. But plain and simple, there's just more demand than has been met historically."