After receiving pushback from nearby homeowners, the local firm slated to buy a retail site along Colorado Boulevard says it won\u2019t seek to have the site rezoned.<\/p>\n
Denver-based Kentro Group, led by the Balafas brothers, says it hasn\u2019t fully determined what it will do with the 7-acre site at 825 S. Colorado Blvd. but will work within the existing three-story zoning.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re still going to try to do something great here,\u201d said Kentro co-founder Jimmy Balafas.<\/p>\n
King Soopers has had a store at the site for a half century but\u00a0is moving a mile south\u00a0to a building Kentro is developing. The 825 S. Colorado property also includes three smaller retail buildings, plus a host of retail units connected to the grocery store.<\/p>\n
Kentro will buy the property from King Soopers\u2019 parent company, Kroger, when the store moves, Balafas said.<\/p>\n
Kentro drew up plans several years ago to redevelop the 825 S. Colorado property under the existing zoning. Balafas said it can likely fit 500 apartments.<\/p>\n
At the time, Balafas said, then-Mayor Michael Hancock\u2019s administration encouraged him to think bigger.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey believed at the time, the old administration\u2019s [Community Planning and Development Department], that this is where density belongs,\u201d Balafas said.<\/p>\n
So Kentro began talking to neighbors about potentially requesting a rezoning of the site. The idea was to do 12 stories at the north end of the property, where it\u2019s the widest, and step down to eight and then five stories on the southern end.<\/p>\n
That might not seem that drastic compared with the other side of Colorado Boulevard, in Glendale city limits, where the Galleria Towers office complex rises 13 stories.<\/p>\n
But behind the property are the streets of the Belcaro neighborhood, which are lined with single-family homes. It\u2019s Denver\u2019s priciest neighborhood,\u00a0according to the county assessor<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is irony and pain here,\u201d Belcaro Park Homeowners Association President Susan Livingston\u00a0told the Denver Gazette<\/a>\u00a0after a meeting with Kentro last fall.<\/p>\n Balafas said he expected pushback from those along Harrison Street, which is closest to the property. But he was surprised to see that even neighbors farther west, deeper into the neighborhood, were staunchly opposed.<\/p>\n \u201cWe didn\u2019t have one person raise their hand to support us at 12 stories,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Balafas said he\u2019d likely have gotten 700 units on the site with 12 stories. But the bigger change, he said, is that the rezoning would have allowed him to add 50,000 or 60,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space and create a more unique project with open space \u2014 something akin to the 9+Co development farther north on Colorado.<\/p>\n Working within the existing zoning will mean a more standard apartment project, Balafas said. While the zoning is three stories, he noted that it\u2019s possible to get four if he takes advantage of Denver\u2019s affordable housing incentives.<\/p>\n