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Grocery’s ‘overhaul’ to continue several months

       So what's going on at King Soopers?
       This winter, the supermarket in the Uintah Gardens shopping center started on an interior remodeling project that will eventually “overhaul all the departments,” according to Jessica Cussins, a spokesperson for King Soopers' headquarters in Denver.
       The store takes up 74,000 square feet, including its rear storage area. Work can be expected to continue for several months, lasting at least till July. A “re-grand opening event” will occur in late summer or early fall, Cussins said.
       The store is using a whiteboard just inside the entrance to give shoppers updates on what work is planned each day. A recent whiteboard elaborated that the outcome will include expansions of the produce, dairy and deli areas, updates to the public restrooms and a relocation of the coffee shop closer to the entrance.
       The earliest remodel activity was in the pharmacy and health products area at the south end of the store. It's being reworked to incorporate a 700-square-foot medical offering that King Soopers has begun offering at many stores in recent years called the Little Clinic. An urgent-care facility with a nurse practitioner, the clinic “is a convenient way to get care,” Cussins said. “You can walk in, and you don't have to wait forever.”
       The newer Centennial King Soopers (built in 2004) has a Little Clinic currently.
       Part of the national Kroger Chain, King Soopers has been at 1750 W. Uintah St., the anchor store for the Uintah Gardens center, since 1972. Its last major renovation was in 2007. The gas station in the parking lot was added in 2006.
       The Kroger business was started in 1883 by Bernard “Barney” Kroger, who is credited with creating the modern grocery-chain model, according to articles referenced on the Internet. A hundred years later, the Kroger chain bought out the Dillon Companies chain that had included King Soopers. The latter store had been started in 1947 by Lloyd J. King of Arvada.

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