#Frisco Colorado
Summit Daily News Link
Natural Grocers confirmed a spring opening for a new store in Frisco, located just off North Ten Mile Drive. While an exact date has not been set yet, the Lakewood-based grocery chain will accompany a new Starbucks, which opened Nov. 20, as well as another potential business.
“This will be a relocation from our Dillon store, which is currently open and will remain so up until the new store opens,” marketing director Jeremy Jones said.
The new store will measure 15,000 square feet, about 5,000 square feet larger than the current location. The stores will go up in the area formerly known as the “Christmas tree lot,” which had been vacant since 1981.
NAVA Real Estate Development, the property owner, is still selecting the ideal tenants for the third building in the lot, which could host one large tenant or multiple smaller tenants. The trick is finding businesses that complement each other, for the perfect mix.
Denver-based Vega Architecture drew plans for the building with a demo kitchen, seating and several additional features. The building is currently being constructed to match Frisco’s mining town aesthetic. Architects looked at old photographs to pull ideas for materials and colors, with more modern architecture influencing the shape of the buildings.
The business will open two blocks away from a new Whole Foods Market that opened in April 2014. Since the new store opened, Frisco has seen inflated sales tax revenues in the grocery sector, up 32 percent in October and up 32.5 percent for the year.
“For us, being in the mountain community was a really natural fit for our brand,” Whole Foods executive Heather Larrabee said. “It’s definitely been a successful store for us.”
She noted that she had seen the pattern of stores opening in close proximity to each other, with a high-degree of “crossover shopping,” where customers shop both stores for different items.
“We definitely share a lot of property proximity. I can think of four or five (Natural Grocers) in our region that are within the same parking lot,” Larrabee said. “Honestly, I think competition is great for both of us. It’s exciting to me that more natural and organic foods are readily accessible.”
Plans for the new Natural Grocers were approved during a Frisco Town Council meeting in March of 2015, and construction of the two remaining buildings is currently underway.
Courtesy of the Summit Daily News.
