Upscale grocery chain Marczyk’s Fine Foods has announced it will be the new main attraction inside a former Safeway building near the corner of Happy Canyon Road and East Hampden Avenue in southeast Denver.
Marczyk’s, which bills itself as “Denver’s favorite neighborhood market,” has two locations in the city, one at 770 E. 17th Ave. and another at 5100 E. Colfax Ave. It got started on 17th in 2002. With this location in the Southmoore Park neighborhood, it is pushing into new turf.
“It is certainly new territory for Marczyk’s to locate in the suburbs, but we have been pioneers since the beginning,” chief operating officer Paul Marczyk said in a statement. “We will strive to be the best place to work and shop in our new neighborhood, plus a magnet for people who know and love food.”
Slated to open late next year, according to Tuesday’s announcement, the store will include a selection of fresh produce, a deli, butcher counter, frozen foods and fresh-baked bread. It will not be alone in the old Safeway. A collection of other retailers are expected to fill out the square footage.
“Lots of our customers have been asking us to come south, but nothing made sense until this property became an option,” said CEO Pete Marczyk, Paul’s brother, in Tuesday’s release. “When we wrote the 10-year vision for the company, more stores and an expanded bakery were part of it. We’re stoked to be able to check these boxes in 2019.”
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The announcement comes just weeks after another Denver fine foods chain, Tony’s Meats & Market, took to its website to say it was no longer part of the Safeway-turned-market-hall project the company announced it would headline in late 2017. The project has been delayed significantly after Gary Dragul, a prominent player in Denver real estate who owned a stake in the Safeway and ran the surrounding Happy Canyon shopping center, was indicted for securities fraud. His company went into bankruptcy and his holdings in the properties have been sold off by an attorney.
New developer, Bellray Holdings, picked Marczyk’s, because “the neighborhoods around Happy Canyon have been clamoring for a specialty grocer and Marczyk has always signified best-in-class,” company president Buzz Calkins said.
Hayden Hirschfeld and Dorit Fischer of NAI Shames Makovsky brokered the deal on behalf of Marczyk’s. Cushman & Wakefield’s Tyler Bray worked on behalf of Bellray, according to the release.
