(COLORADO SPRINGS) — A new 21-acre development anchored by a King Soopers will be coming to Fountain, at the corner of Mesa Ridge Parkway and Syracuse Street.

The City announced the development after 16 months of preparation, yet community members living in Fountain are left with mixed reviews as they continue to fight for more affordable and healthy food options.

“We are definitely as a community underserved from a retail access of grocery services,” Kimberly Bailey, Economic Development Urban Renewal Director for the City of Fountain said.

The new King Soopers will be built less than two miles away from an already existing grocery store. Some people that live in Fountain are still not on board. One neighbor says she likes the store but the location stinks, another says the traffic in the area is already a challenge. Others say, ‘Hey at least we have options now.’

Some other community members FOX21 spoke to say they wanted a grocery store built in the old downtown area at West Missouri and South Santa Fe Avenues to relieve congestion at Safeway.

City leaders said although Fountain is not a food desert, there is a sub-area in the Old Town District which is a food desert, because there are no goods and services to support those living there.

“When retailers look at a community, they’re looking at a retail trade area so they don’t specifically go by the boundaries of a city’s jurisdiction,” Bailey said. “They really look at cell phone traffic, they look at what is the trade area, lack of services, of access in that corridor and so King Soopers was highly interested in our community because of the retail trade nexus.”

The City of Fountain says the King Soopers retailers are heavily investing the eastern expansion area of Fountain to relieve overcrowding at one of its existing grocery stores off Constitution Avenue.

“The key aspect of the Mesa Ridge King Soopers anchor development is it is actually a two-for-one win for the City and what I mean by that is that we are gaining an additional grocery, which is highly needed,” Bailey said. “We have a leakage of about $42 million and grocery related services in the overall Fountain Valley, but this project allows for a UCHealth medical facility to equally come into that Mesa Ridge quadrant.”

The City said one of their goals specified in the City Comprehensive Plan was to “minimize leakage of consumer spending,” which is when consumers spend money outside their local markets, according to Investopedia. The City said the King Soopers anchor grocer project will close approximately $42 million in consumer leakage spending.

Part of the King Soopers deal is that the City will commit to putting in a new transit stop off Syracuse Street by expanding the route and inserting a bus stop.

The development is slated for an anchor opening date of 2025.