SUN’s response to Forest City included a suggested rearrangement of the Eastbridge town center that kept the 58,000 square foot grocery store but moved it to the west—place the entrances to all the retail in closer proximity to Geneva Court and to each other. It also reduced the number of parking spaces.The parking exceeds Denver’s requirement but is less that King Soopers wants.

Forest City solicited community feedback about the concept plan for a grocery store in Eastbridge. SUN’s full response is provided here. To summarize, SUN stated:

The community is pleased that progress is being made, a strong preference is present for natural options at the grocery store;

modifications to the concept plan are desired to increase walkability and align with other new urbanism qualities;

the gas station should not be located in the town center in order to avoid human and environmental health concerns;

and wildlife in the nearby nature reserve would benefit from a visual barrier blocking light pollution at night.

Forest City’s response to SUN’s comments is provided here. To summarize:

Forest City will forward the SUN comments to King Soopers for their consideration, and will also forward the comments to the developer selected to build the small scale retail.

The selected developer will make the final determination about the heights of buildings and configuration of the plaza and types of amenities for that retail.

Retailers won’t locate where they don’t believe their customers can park. The need for this parking requires reconfiguration of Geneva Court from a private road to a private drive

Gas stations located in proximity to grocery anchors are an important part of a grocer’s location decision because they bring value to the store’s customers. That fueling station would be located on the parcel east of Havana and is separated from the small scale retail area and would be required to meet all environmental and public health operational standards.

The KS store and gas station would be required to follow Stapleton’s “dark skies” standards to reduce urban glare.

The proposed site plan for the KS grocery store would be subject to the same design review process required of all development at Stapleton. Comments may be submitted to the Stapleton Design Review Committee at comments@sdcdenver.org.

Grocery anchored centers with a grocer of this size can typically only support around 20,000 sf of small scale retail space unless the grocer is located in a very densely populated area without other services. Therefore, this (SUN’s) plan (referred to as “the preferred alternative plan”) would likely fail as it would be very unlikely that the small scale retail space would fully lease up given the insufficiency of density around Eastbridge which has limited rooftops to the north and northeast, combined with all of Stapleton’s current retail opportunities. It would also likely fail because it is grossly under parked.

All issues in this section have been raised and addressed above with the exception of the question why FC believes the Town Center must be anchored by a grocery store. The answer is that small scale retail in the Town Center will not be viable without a grocery store. It could not be financed or leased without the grocery anchor.