Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAboutHARMONY SAFEWAY MARKETPLACE PUD - FINAL - 33-94B - MEDIA - (5)A2, LOCAL, The Coloradoan, Tuesday, May 13, 1997 Long"waftiW Neighborhood has a voice in new plans Bycww uNGwooD The Coloradoan Back in 1984, a solitary sign north of Harmony Road an- nounced to Golden Meadows homeowners: "Coming soon, neighborhood shopping center." Now, 13 years and a $3 million lawsuit later, a 115,000 square - foot shopping center, anchored by a modestly sized Safeway, is slated for completion around Jan. 1. "It's going to be a shopping cen- ter. But it's not going to be a big box with 40-foot concrete walls," Tim Dolan told his fellow neigh- bors during a recent meeting of the neighborhood association. His comment reflected concerns raised in 1994 when a Denver builder tried to construct a large, 24-hour King Soopers on the same parcel. "The developer came in with his swaggering ways and big bucks and said, This is what I'm going to do," said- Val Scott, a Golden Meadows resident of more than 12 years. The subdivision and the city of Fort Collins blocked those plans but not before the city paid the developer, Jim Sullivan, $125,000 to settle a lawsuit — a fight re- ferred to by residents as the "King Soopers fiasco." Employees at Sullivan's devel- opment company said he was out of town Monday and could not be reached for comment. "It got a lot uglier a lot faster than it needed to be,' Dolan said. Neighborhoods "But I don't fault King Soopers at all. It was the developer himself who had a no -prisoners attitude." So when Safeway approached neighborhood leaders about six months later, a wiser cast of resi- dents weren't about to be taken by one of the nation's largest re- tailers. "Safeway did a magnificent job. They realized that it was in their center closer to reality best interest to meet with us," Dolan said. Out of those meetings came an eight -lot, six -store complex, which Safeway says will be built with its neighbors to the north in mind. "We agreed to add a landscaping island to identify that as an en- trance to the neighborhood and not a cut -across to the supermar- ket," said Katy Press, a Safeway real estate manager. The retail chain also agreed to pay for the paving of 11 "speed humps" to slow traffic in the Gold- en Meadows subdivision. Safeway also will landscape Monte Carlo Drive and pave traffic -slowing cir- cles on several streets they will share with the neighborhood. Unlike King Soopers, Safeway agreed to limit the hours and size of its store. Blueprints for the store show it to be about 49,000 square feet — about 26,000 HORSETOOTH ROAD Wa-en Colfindale Park' GaN < Course Warren Q Golden Meadows Lake W neighborhood r 40GA oR„_, rro,,,T� �99coDa V HARMONYROAD Angela Ulndrhe Coloradoan square feet less than what King Soopers envisioned. "We don't need the added traf- fic, the 24 hours of shopping. Peo- ple from Cheyenne coming down to buy toilet paper," Scott said. Press has negotiated with en- claves up and down the Front Range, and no neighborhood has been as active as Golden Mead- ows, she said. "They understood that this is a give-and-take process. They real- ized it wouldn't be a situation where they had a list of 50 de mands and Safeway would meet all of them," Press said. Construction on the project, lo- cated north of Harmony Road be- tween Wheaton Drive and Mc- Murray Avenue, has stalled. Building permits for the shopping center have yet to be approved. But Safeway expects customers will be strolling its produce aisle by January. Besides being able to walk down the street for milk and eggs, Dolan said his neighbors have benefited in another way. "It's been an education for pri- vate citizens that you can make a, difference in the system," he said.' "That you can literally fight City; Hall."