A once-barren shopping center in Denver’s Montbello neighborhood is bustling with new life these days, thanks in part to the nonprofit Colorado Enterprise Fund dedicating to the project the largest investment in its more than 40-year history.
A Save-A-Lot discount grocery store celebrated its grand opening at 4884 Chambers Road early last month, taking up a chunk of a long-shuttered Safeway in the Chambers Place shopping center. The 25,000-square-foot store now anchors roughly 80,000 square feet of space in the center that brothers Chris and John Leevers purchased in 2015. Their goal was to open a grocery story and other health-focused businesses in one of Denver’s so-called “food desert” neighborhoods — places where there are no full-service grocers nearby.
“We try to go one step further by working with customers to build healthier families and communities,” John Leevers said in a news release. “The hope is that our large assortment of produce, cooking and nutrition classes, and having tenants that promote active and healthy living will achieve that.”
Acquiring and redeveloping the property came with a $10.5 million price tag, according to the Leeverses. A Wells Fargo loan for $4.9 million got them halfway there, but they were unable to find another lender to help them with the remaining balance.
Enter the Colorado Enterprise Fund, which since 1976 has been providing loans to local small businesses that traditional banks won’t take a chance on. The CEF worked with fellow nonprofits the Colorado Housing and Finance Authority and The Colorado Trust to cobble together $3.5 million — $1 million from CEF, $1.5 million from the housing and finance authority, and $1 million from the Colorado Trust. That, combined with the Leeverses’ equity and a short-term construction loan, got the project off the ground.
Now, Chambers Place is home to the Save-A-Lot and a Planet Fitness gym, and it will soon welcome a DaVita dialysis clinic with room for another retailer, the Leeverses said. The $1 million loan is the largest that the CEF has doled out and double its typical maximum of $500,000, said Ceyl Prinster, the nonprofit’s president and CEO.
“Grocery stores are a real key component of what makes neighborhoods work and keeps neighborhood vibrant,” Prinster, who hails from a grocery industry family, said of the project. “We were really willing to go above and beyond to make this project happen.”
Save-A-Lot operates smaller footprint stores than many grocers. Stores feature a large selection of produce, meats butchered in-store and curated collections of popular items. Save-A-Lot operates locations across the country, but all of its Colorado locations are owned and operated by Leevers Supermarket Inc.
Leevers Supermarket has been 100 percent employee owned since 2012, president John Leevers said in an interview. Successful stores help employees build wealth, he said. It is anticipated that the Chambers Place redevelopment project, including the grocery store, will create more than 80 jobs in the neighborhood.
The store is home to a more than 500-square-foot community room, available for free use by any community organization, John Leevers said. The company will also offer cooking and nutrition demonstrations there. Leevers credited CEF, the Colorado Housing and Finance Authority and The Colorado Trust for getting behind a project that he hopes will be a benefit to the community for years to come.
“All three really got behind this is a huge way,” he said. “Food security leads to health security.”
