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 theAlbertsons-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.
Denver
Resident-led grocery store, marketplace breaks ground in Montbello
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.
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