In the last days of May, shelves at the King Soopers at 825 S. Colorado Blvd. were being cleared at steep markdowns. Outside, faded RadioShack and Mike's Camera signs still hung over storefronts that, as Denverite put it, "have sat empty for years." The store closed at the end of the day on Tuesday, June 2. It had been open for more than 50 years.
The next morning, the weekly grocery run moved about a mile south. The store and the corner it left behind come from one chain of decisions, and the two ends have effectively swapped jobs. The new grocery store stands on land where a housing project once fell through. The old grocery site is now slated for apartments. One Denver developer is tied to both.
The new King Soopers opened Wednesday, June 3, at 4201 E. Arkansas Ave. in Virginia Village. Denverite put the store at 103,000 square feet and the cost at $37.1 million. Inside are a Murray's Cheese counter and a Starbucks, and there's a gas station on site.
The hours matter more than the floor plan for anyone rebuilding a routine. Here's how the store's own listing breaks them down:
| Department | Listed hours |
|---|---|
| Store | Every day, 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. |
| Fuel center | Every day, 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. |
| Drive-thru pharmacy, Monday to Friday | 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. |
| Drive-thru pharmacy, Saturday | 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. |
| Drive-thru pharmacy, Sunday | 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. |
The pharmacy also closes from 1 to 1:30 p.m. every day, so a lunch-hour prescription pickup won't work. Store hours change from time to time, and the King Soopers store page has the current schedule.
The store may serve more than Belcaro. Denverite noted that it could fill the gap left when a nearby Safeway in the Cory-Merrill neighborhood closed in 2025.
The Arkansas Avenue land used to be the Colorado Department of Transportation's headquarters. In 2021, a developer tried and failed to build affordable housing there, Denverite reported.
After that plan fell apart, King Soopers broke ground on the site in 2025. So the parcel once meant for housing now sells Belcaro's groceries, and the Belcaro parcel that sold groceries for half a century is now the one with housing plans in front of the city.
The Denver Post reported that the new store was developed by Kentro Group, a Denver firm, which broke ground in early 2025. In the same June story, the Post said Kentro was "poised to purchase" the Belcaro site King Soopers had just left.
The Belcaro center covers 7 acres at the southwest corner of East Exposition Avenue and Colorado Boulevard. According to the Post, Kentro had already agreed not to seek rezoning there after neighbors pushed back. A rezoning would have allowed a taller building. Whatever gets built has to fit the zoning the site already has.
Kentro co-founder Jimmy Balafas described the state of the deals to the Denver Post in June: "Everyone's working to get it done, but there's still uncertainty."
The apartment plan comes from Kentro's partner, San Antonio-based Embrey. In May, the Denver planning firm Norris Design filed a formal site development plan letter for the project on Embrey's behalf. The city's documents call it Embrey Belcaro North. As the Denver Post summarized it in August, the plan includes:
The new store opened on schedule. The plans for the old corner are moving more slowly. In late July, a King Soopers spokesperson told the Denver Post that the company had identified a buyer for the vacant property and was working through the details of the sale. The company didn't name the buyer.
As of Monday, August 3, the city's permitting portal showed the formal site development plan as "resubmittal required" and the overall project as "in progress." A spokesperson for Denver's Community Planning and Development department told the Post the city had finished its first review and was waiting for a revised plan.
Embrey's vice president of development, Casey Klein, told the Post the company was responding to the city's comments: "We remain fully committed to the project."
Neither the June report nor the August report gave a date for demolition or construction. Until a revised plan is approved, the corner stays as it was on the day the doors closed. Anyone who wants to follow the review can find Denver's active site development plan report online. The city says the data there is updated daily.
The center has a second proposal of its own. On the adjacent 1.35-acre parcel at 865 S. Colorado Blvd. stands a vacant liquor store building. Dardano's, the shoe retailer, has proposed tearing down that 8,884-square-foot building and putting up a single-story store in its place.
According to filings G3 Architecture made in May on Dardano's behalf, the new building would have 14,910 square feet on the main floor plus a 3,124-square-foot mezzanine, for 18,034 square feet in all. It would have 57 parking spaces on site, along East Ohio Avenue.
That project is at an earlier stage than the apartments. The city said in August it was waiting for a formal site development plan application now that the proposal had cleared concept review. Dardano's runs stores in Denver and Broomfield. The Denver store is a mile south at 1550 S. Colorado Blvd. If the Belcaro plan goes ahead, that shopping trip would get shorter by about the same mile the grocery run just added.
While the corner waits, nearby errands are a short drive in either direction. Home Team Deli opened this summer at 1233 S. Colorado Blvd. in the former Wahoo's Fish Tacos space, Westword reported in its August 1 roundup. It's the deli's third Colorado location, after the Streets of Southglenn in Centennial and one in Broomfield.
To the west, Bonnie Brae Ice Cream at 799 S. University Blvd. held a party for its 40th anniversary on July 19, with face painting, balloon artists and prizes. Bonnie Brae Ice Cream turned 40 this summer, and the King Soopers on Colorado Boulevard closed after more than 50 years.
For now, the regular trip to Exposition and Colorado has turned into a drive past a dark storefront to the store on Arkansas Avenue. That store has a cheese counter, opens at 6 a.m., and was built by the same developer the Post reported as poised to buy the old site.
Steve Charlett helps physicians, healthcare professionals and their families learn those local details before moving day, from where the grocery store is to which corners are about to change. If you're planning a move to central Denver and want a calm, well-informed walk through the neighborhoods, Contact Us.
