Company that is building Sprouts has plans for a shopping center at 71st and U.S. 287
By Craig Young
LOVELAND — King Soopers is considering building a third store in Loveland, possibly as part of a proposed development at 71st Street and U.S. 287.
Evergreen Devco, the Phoenix company building the Sprouts Farmers Market in Loveland, is preparing to submit applications for a 20-acre retail development at the north-Loveland site, a company official confirmed.
That property is on King Soopers’ list of possible locations for a new store, according to spokeswoman Kelli McGannon.
“We are certainly looking to expand our footprint in Loveland,” McGannon said. “We haven’t confirmed any locations, but that one is a potential site.”
In November 2014, King Soopers completed a major renovation and expansion of its original Loveland store at 253 E. 29th St., built in 1976. It also has a location at 1275 Eagle Drive in southwest Loveland, which opened in 1999.
Evergreen has built other stores for King Soopers, but principal Tyler Carlson, who runs the developer’s Colorado operations, said he couldn’t confirm whether the grocery chain is a potential tenant.
Carlson said his company has assembled eight lots at the southwest corner of 71st and U.S. 287 (Garfield Avenue) and has them under contract to buy from three different owners.
Construction in 2017
Evergreen could spend the rest of the year putting all the pieces together, including completing the city’s special-review process, and might not put shovels in the ground until early next year, Carlson said. The shopping center should be complete by the end of 2017 or early in 2018, he said.
Troy Bliss, senior planner with the city, said preliminary discussions with Evergreen indicate that the company would have an anchor tenant, plus smaller retail pads along Garfield. Evergreen plans to request a realignment of Harrison Avenue, which runs north-south through the property between 71st and 69th streets, Bliss said.
Carlson said his company is talking with the Colorado Department of Transportation about the possibility of adding an entrance to the property from U.S. 287. The site also has access to the highway from 65th and 71st streets, which have traffic signals.
Last year, Evergreen was working with the city of Fort Collins to possibly develop a King Soopers store at Carpenter Road and U.S. 287, just a mile north of 71st Street.
“When our project didn’t work out in south Fort Collins, we very intentionally went looking for another opportunity in Loveland because we had a great experience with the city staff,” Carlson said. “They were fantastic to work with on our Sprouts project.
“Every department was great. They were very supportive from day one,” he said. “It’s a very pro-business city, and we like that.”
Not seeking incentives
Although Carlson said he was left with a good impression after dealing with Loveland’s city staff, the Sprouts project didn’t exactly sail smoothly through the City Council.
Because the Sprouts site at Lincoln Avenue and Eisenhower Boulevard required the purchase and demolition of several buildings, and because of the amount of rent that Sprouts was prepared to pay, Evergreen needed an incentive from the city to make the project financially feasible, Carlson said.
The $2.1 million up-front incentive, to be repaid with city sales tax revenue, proved controversial, although the deal eventually won City Council approval.
This time around, Carlson said, his company doesn’t plan to ask for any incentives.
“That’s definitely not part of our plan,” he said. “We never go into a project assuming we’re going to get incentives from a city.”
The property at 71st and Garfield is a vacant field, so Carlson said it won’t have the same redevelopment costs as the Sprouts site. He also doesn’t anticipate being required to do major off-site road improvements, and the project is larger, so the costs can be spread over more tenants, he said.
Carlson said he’s excited about the project.
“In that north part of Loveland, and south Fort Collins, there’s a lot of growth happening. It’s a great part of town,” he said.
