An aggressive expansion in the Pikes Peak region by supermarket giant King Soopers will mean more grocery shopping options for Fountain-area residents.

King Soopers broke ground Thursday on its latest large format marketplace store, which will anchor the Mesa Ridge Marketplace in Fountain, south of Colorado Springs. The shopping center will be constructed on 21 acres southeast of Mesa Ridge Parkway and Syracuse Street.

The approximately 122,000-square-foot King Soopers marketplace will be roughly twice the size of the chain’s traditional stores and will sell apparel, shoes, dinnerware, small appliances and other items to go with full lines of groceries, meat and produce. Amenities will include a Starbucks, a Murray’s cheese shop, an 18-pump fuel station and a pharmacy with a drive-thru.

The store is scheduled to open in summer 2025, will cost $37.3 million and will be the 156th location for Denver-based King Soopers, which is part of the nationwide Kroger grocery chain, store officials said during a groundbreaking ceremony.

“We think that it’s a community that’s underserved from a grocery perspective and we think that we can serve the community in a great fashion with all kinds of solutions, including an in-store pharmacy, our favorites like Starbucks and sushi and Murray’s cheese,” said Joe Kelley, King Soopers’ president. “We’re just really excited to get this store open.”

So are Fountain city officials.

For years, they’ve sought to expand Fountain’s grocery offerings for local residents, some of whom still drive north to Colorado Springs when they shop. Last year, a Fountain consultant estimated the city was losing $42 million annually in retail activity because area residents chose to shop in the Springs and elsewhere.

Now, the King Soopers marketplace will provide another major grocery to go with a Safeway store and two Walmart Supercenters. Sam’s Club, the Walmart-owned wholesale club, also has a location in Fountain, where smaller discounters Dollar Tree and Family Dollar also operate, though with limited grocery offerings.

“When you look at the entire Fountain Valley, there’s about 70,000 residents here,” said Fountain City Councilman Gordon Rick, who also serves as mayor pro tem. “We only have two places to go that provide fresh meat and fresh produce. King Soopers will give us a third option for those 70,000 residents to buy from.”

Safeway and Walmart have been in Fountain for many years. So, why has it taken King Soopers so long to expand there?

Rick said there’s been a perception that Fountain has been too small to support big businesses. A U.S. Census Bureau report estimated Fountain’s population at 28,489 in 2023, though that figure represents a reduction of about 1,400 people since 2020 — a loss city leaders have disputed.

“That perception may be what has driven some companies to look beyond Fountain,” Rick said of the notion of Fountain being too small. “But we have done a lot of work to bring more rooftops and more people in here that will support bigger stores.”

King Soopers will be joined at the Mesa Ridge Marketplace by other stores and restaurants, according to Evergreen Devco, a real estate company with offices in Denver, Phoenix, California and Utah and that’s building the shopping center.

Evergreen Devco’s website shows that hamburger, chicken and Mexican restaurants, a sandwich shop, hair salon, bank, auto parts store, oil change service and dentist’s office are among users who have signed leases or have pending deals to come to Mesa Ridge Marketplace.

But the new Mesa Ridge Marketplace, King Soopers and additional stores and restaurants will be just one component of development near the Mesa Ridge Parkway and Syracuse Street intersection.

Fountain officials have said that healthcare provider UC Health is building a 23,000-square-foot medical facility across the street, on the west side of Syracuse. That’s where the Mesa Ridge Crossing shopping center — home to Dutch Bros Coffee, Quick Quack car wash, Discount Tire and a Good 2 Go convenience store — has been developed.

“We don’t have a hospital, we don’t have a lot of clinics that can handle specialty treatments that people need in Fountain,” Rick said. “That (UC Health) clinic will give us those options.”

King Soopers in Fountain will be the chain’s fourth marketplace store in the Colorado Springs area.

The first opened in 2017 as the anchor of the Claremont Ranch Marketplace at Constitution Avenue and Marksheffel Road on the east edge of the Springs. A second King Soopers marketplace opened in January as anchor of Falcon Marketplace, at Woodmen and Meridian roads in unincorporated Falcon outside Colorado Springs. Those shopping centers also have been built by Evergreen Devco.

King Soopers broke ground in November on a third marketplace store that will anchor a shopping center being built southeast of Colorado 83 and North Gate Boulevard in the Flying Horse development on Colorado Springs’ far north side. That King Soopers, part of a shopping center being built by the Barclay Group, an Arizona real estate company, is targeted to open in early 2025.