When the goal is to be a positive influence on your community, good things happen
A friend of mine, and former neighbor in Highland, has done a lot to turn the Lo-Hi neighborhood into what it is now, and the Denver Post just did a nice article on him.
Paul Tamburello has developed housing in the neighborhood, the Olinger Mortuary building that houses Lola and Vita, the incredibly fabulous (and simple) Little Man Ice Cream, in the giant metal milk can. He organizes hay rides at Christmastime, with real horses. And now, he's developing the rest of the Olinger property and looking to put in a gourmet market and a jazz club.
Why can't he come to Stapleton and help with our second town center?
Paul has been an inspiration to me. His goal is to be a positive influence on his community, and it shows. He's seeking businesses that will improve the lives of his neighbors.
Forest City, you could take a suggestion here: our community doesn't need another King Soopers, with a huge parking lot and a big selection of processed food for cheap, in our second town center. We just need a small market with good, real food. Somewhere you can run in to pick up milk, or a crunchy baguette, or good olives, or a Stilton cheese.
Any Stapleton residents out there considering opening a market like this?
Posts
The location of the EaWe (that’s east of Westerly Creek) town center is a poor one. With Bluff Nature Center to the east and big swaths of commercial development and prisons to the northeast and north, the site does not and probably will never have the residential density that makes a Kings Soopers-type development viable. While that cheers many people in EaWe who want to see local, small-scale retail businesses, unfortunately the site probably can’t support that type of pedestrian development either. This isn’t due to lack of vision or creativity on the part of Forest City. It is due to the laws of commercial real estate, and the site sucks as a retail location. Period.
Significant redevelopment will probably drive the dreaded King Soopers to Fitz/Colfax or Peoria. The bigger concern is what happens when Forest City decides to cut its losses and give up on the town center concept. The glass car wash is probably a sign of things to come—funny it is not shown in FC video
http://shop.stapletondenver.com/shops/eastbridge
I disagree with Anonymous' account. The rec center in close proximity will bring more consumers, for one. For another, MLK is supposed to eventually extend to the east, which will bring much more traffic.
I think if anyone did their research here they would be sure to find success with a) a small organic market, which will play to Park Hill and Stapleton; b) a gas station, which will probably be opposed but seriously: our choices are Colfax or the dreaded KS; c) a casual style, large brewery a-la Southern Sun. This community is filled with hippies and hippy-wannabees and other people with relatively loads of disposable income, and yet there is NO place to go within a 10 mile radius for a decent plate of nachos and a micro brew in which we can bring our tiny kids along. Cassey's is a distant second choice.