Regatta Plaza: Slow sailing

AURORA | Few neighborhoods were as happy to see demolition crews as the residents who live near the old, rundown Regatta Plaza were a few years ago.

The tractors and wrecking crews that knocked down the dilapidated and long-vacant buildings near Interstate 225 and Parker Road nearly brought tears to the eyes of some longtime residents who had waited years to see the once-thriving shopping center, turned major eyesore, finally razed.

Aurora was ready for change. That was nearly two years ago.

In recent months, work at the shopping center has largely gone silent.

The beat-up old parking lot with its pockmarked asphalt and kitchen-sink sized potholes are gone, as are the old storefronts with busted windows and battered facades. Each has been replaced by fields of vacant dirt. A narrow road cuts through the shopping center leading precariously like a driveway to the King Soopers grocery store, the lone business still standing.

But Carl Koelbel, vice president of Koelbel and Co., which is redeveloping Regatta, said what may seem like a delay in the redevelopment is actually by design.

After sitting largely vacant for several years, the old Regatta had become not just an eyesore, but a magnet for transients, Koelbel said.

So developers opted for a more-aggressive demolition timeline, he said, choosing to raze the buildings as quickly as they could. That meant that by the time the last of the buildings were down, construction was still several months out because developers still needed to secure permits and finalize plans before work could begin.

That work is underway, Koelbel said, and crews will start building infrastructure projects at the site this spring.

“We’ve been working behind the scenes,” he said.

Don’t put your coat on to head over for a grand opening right away, however. Those events are at least a year or more away.

Redeveloping Regatta has long been a goal of city council members, city planners and local residents.

Aurora City Councilman Charlie Richardson, whose Ward IV covers Regatta, said that when he campaigned for council in 2015 the redevelopment was the biggest issue among voters he spoke to.

“Time and time again residents would spontaneously identify this issue as their primary concern,” he said.

Koelbel said the redevelopers appreciate the neighborhood’s patience and he hopes when they see the infrastructure work start this spring will help to quell any worries that the redevelopment could be off-track.

“Once we have construction going on out there, I think some of the concern will go away,” he said.

After the infrastructure is complete later this year, Koelbel said, work will begin on the new King Soopers first. That store will open about a year after construction begins in earnest, he said, and will be the first new building at the redevelopment.

Koelbel said the current King Soopers will stay open until the new one is ready. There will be no period where the shopping center is without a King Soopers, he said.

“Their intent is to not have a single day without a grocery store operational,” he said.

Once the new store is open, Koelbel said crews, will tear down the old one and that parcel of land on the south side of East Dartmouth Avenue will see construction on the residential, office and retail pieces.

The project is a little strange, Koelbel said, because much of the construction has to wait for that new grocery store to open and the old one to close. But once that happens, he said the southern end of the site — including the pedestrian bridge crossing Parker — can get started.