When a community group asked Montbello residents seven years ago what they wanted to see in their neighborhood, a replacement for the grocery store that closed after the Albertsons-Safeway merger in 2015 was a priority.
The campaign to open a full-service grocery in the northeast Denver neighborhood that’s now considered a food desert has now grown into a $97 million project that also includes affordable housing, an arts education and cultural center, a small business accelerator and mental health services office.
People have started moving into a 97-unit apartment building built on an abandoned Regional Transportation District Park-n-Ride lot. A nonprofit grocery store is expected to open in a strip mall next to the apartments early next year. The groundbreaking for a 16,000-square-foot cultural center in a section of the mall’s parking lot will likely occur later in 2025.
And the Montbello Organizing Committee, known as MOC and representing the neighborhood’s residents, will own all of the community buildings.
“This is not some big corporate thing. These are neighbors coming together and saying, ‘Hey, this is what we want. This is what we need. Now, how do we do it?’ ” said Vernon Jones, pastor of the United Church of Montbello and MOC board member.
The fallout from Montbello’s loss of a major grocery store helped inform why the state is fighting the proposed consolidation of Kroger and Albertson Cos., said Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser. It was one of the stories he heard from Coloradans when touring the state to hear from people about the merger.
“One consequence, as in Montbello, is a food desert concern,” said Weiser, who filed a lawsuit in February to challenge the grocery chains’ plan.
Kroger, parent company of King Soopers and City Market, and Albertsons, which owns Safeway, say teaming up will help them compete better against grocery giants Walmart and Costco. Colorado’s case is set for trial beginning Sept. 30 in Denver District Court.
The effort to improve Montbello residents’ access to healthy food is tied to other needs in the community, Jones said.
“The community survey exposed some holistic needs. People not only needed a place to eat, they needed affordable places to live,” said Jones, whose family has lived in Montbello since the 1960s. “We know that all across our city, people are being displaced. I think that almost every neighborhood I can remember growing up looks different because housing prices are going up.”
Construction continues at the FreshLo Hub, a community development that will include affordable housing, retail and an independent grocery store in the Montbello neighborhood in Denver, pictured on Aug. 14, 2024. (Photo by RJ Sangosti/The Denver Post)
“Community-inspired and community-led”
Planning for what MOC has named the FreshLo Hub began in 2017. Montbello’s plan was one of 26 initiatives nationwide selected by the Kresge Foundation to focus on improving access to food, arts and culture in low-income areas and communities of color.
The basis for the plan was feedback from Montbello residents, said Donna Garnett, the CEO of MOC. She lives in neighboring Green Valley Ranch.
The Montbello neighborhood’s population of 41,000 is 63% Hispanic, 17% Black and 12% white, with the rest other ethnicities. Twenty-eight percent of the residents are foreign-born, double the statewide rate, according to MOC.
With $75,000 from Kresge and grants from the Denver and Colorado Health foundations, the community group sponsored public meetings and went into neighborhoods to get input.
“Our staff got on the bus. We stood outside the Family Dollar store. We asked people, ‘What do you want in our community? What would make a difference for you, your family?’ ” Garnett said.
Donna Garnett, CEO of the Montbello Organizing Committee, opens the blinds in a new one-bedroom apartment in the FreshLo Hub, a community development that will include affordable housing, retail and an independent grocery store in the Montbello neighborhood in Denver on Aug. 14, 2024. (Photo by RJ Sangosti/The Denver Post)
Approximately 2,500 people took part. The project has three phases: affordable housing, the grocery store and the FreshLo Arts Education Center. Money for the work has come from several sources, including federal Low-Income Housing and New Markets tax credit programs.
“Because it was community-inspired and community-led, there have been investors, foundations and governments that have been eager to support this project,” Garnett said.
The organization will work to maintain the trust of the community and backers, Garnett said. There will be annual reviews to ensure that the businesses and services are delivering what the community wants.
“The investors are holding us accountable as well for that,” Garnett said.
FLO Development Services and MOC are co-developers of the FreshLo Hub. The general contractors are Gilmore Construction Corp. and Alliance Construction Solutions. Roybal Corp. and Van Meter Williams Pollack are the architects and engineers involved.
Other partners include the Colorado Black Arts Movement, S.B. Clark Financial Services, WellPower — formerly the Mental Health Center of Denver — and Daily Table, a nonprofit grocery store chain out of the Boston area.
Construction began after MOC bought the old RTD Park-n-Ride site for $750,000. Garnett said that, although the adjacent strip mall wasn’t for sale, MOC made an offer.
“They countered and ultimately, in December of 2023, we closed” the deal, Garnett said. “The entire FreshLo campus is a little over 3 acres.”
The community group paid $5.6 million for the mall, which houses a Subway restaurant, a laundry, a barber shop and a Mexican restaurant. Of the $97 million price tag for the entire development, MOC still needs to raise $10 million.
“We always say that everything takes longer than you thought it would. You can’t do it by yourself, and in the end it will be worth it,” Garnett said.
Locally sourced, locally run grocery store
Besides being a food desert, Garnett said, Montbello is a transportation desert and mental health desert. In addition to shutting down the Park-n-Ride site along Peoria Street, RTD eliminated some bus routes a few years ago.
“RTD put some routes back in place, but made the time between buses longer. That had an impact on people’s ability to get where they needed to go,” Garnett said.
Montbello’s most densely populated areas are 4 to 6 miles from full-service grocery stores, Garnett said. Under the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s definition of a food desert, Montbelllo meets the criteria, she said.
The USDA considers the poverty rate and access to healthy, affordable food as part of its definition. In an urban area, the description applies when at least 500 people and/or at least 33% of the population lives more than 1 mile from a supermarket or large grocery store.
Garnett said MOC talked to national grocery chains about opening a store in Montbello and was told the neighborhood didn’t meet their criteria, including education levels.
“Education level can translate into income,” she said.
According to MOC, Montbello’s higher education level is about 16.5%, roughly a third of that in other parts of metro Denver. The neighborhood’s poverty rate is approximately 20% higher than the statewide rate and a quarter of the residents experience food insecurity.
However, a 2018 market survey by MOC found that Montbello residents were spending “an extraordinary amount of money” on groceries in other parts of Denver, which Garnett believed meant the community could support a supermarket.
The 16,000-square-foot FreshLo Hub Arts Education Center will be part of $97 million community project in Denver’s Montbello neighborhood. Work on the project began when residents wanted to bring back a full-service grocery store to the area and includes affordable housing and a mental health services facility. (Rendering provided by the Colorado Black Arts Movement)
Daily Table, a Boston-area nonprofit started by a former president of the grocer Trader Joe’s, agreed to work with MOC. Willie Shepherd, who is with Flo Development and manages the strip mall, said the grocery store is expected to open in a 5,200-square-foot space in the first quarter of 2025.
“There will be staples that reflect the community as well as grab-and-go items that you can get for lunch or take home for dinner. It will all be reasonably priced for people in this community,” Shepherd said.
A consultant hired by the FreshLo Hub used to be Daily Table’s chief operating officer. The Montbello store will use Daily Table’s model but have its own grocer-operator. Shepherd said the store will work with local suppliers and hire as many people from the community as possible.
“There will be input from the community, not just the residents of the Hub (apartments), but the whole community to make sure we’re meeting the needs of the different ethnicities of the people we’ll be serving,” Shepherd said.
“This is just the beginning.”
Dianne Cooks is among the many people in the middle of moving into the FreshLo Hub apartment building at Peoria Street and East Albrook Drive. She has lived in Montbello for 40 years and said the new affordable housing is vital to people like her.
“It’s so important because you don’t have to leave your community to go somewhere else to live that’s affordable. You can stay in your own community and that’s a big deal,” Cooks said. “All my kids, nieces and nephews live in Montbello. I have community ties here. I have family ties here.”
Cooks, a MOC board member for a year, is moving into a one-bedroom apartment that complies with the Americans with Disabilities Act. A third-party property manager has been hired who has experience with the rules around federal affordable housing programs.
This is a three-bedroom apartment at the new FreshLo Hub, a community development being built that will include affordable housing, retail, and a independent grocery store in the Montbello neighborhood, in Denver on Aug. 14, 2024. (Photo by RJ Sangosti/The Denver Post)
In August, Garnett and Tony Iglesias from DAE Group, the construction project manager, took visitors on a tour of the apartment building, which has five floors of units ranging from one to three bedrooms.
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A coffee shop, a small-business accelerator and office spaces will take up one half of the ground floor. The other half will house the WellPower mental health space. The second floor has a fitness center, a community kitchen and dining space, as well as an area that can be partitioned off for events.
Through the doors is a deck with tables, a fire pit, grills, playground equipment, raised garden beds, shades and chairs.
“It’s a beautiful deck for us to have family time or just time for getting to know our neighbors,” Cooks said.
The parking garage has electric-vehicle chargers. MOC has initiatives to address climate change, Garnett said.
MOC board member Jones said he drives by the apartment building every morning he takes his daughter to school.
“Every day I get to be inspired by what’s possible, not just in our community but in the world,” Jones said. “We hope we’re able to do more to keep families here who’ve been here for generations, families that want to raise their kids in Montbello like they were raised in Montbello.
“I don’t think this will be the last that we seek to do. This is just the beginning,” he added.
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