Viet Hoa Supermarket

Where to grocery shop when you live in Belmar?

Well, downtown Lakewood has both a King Soopers and a Whole Foods Market. But living in Belmar also gives you choices you wouldn't have if you lived in a newer, less-ethnically diverse suburb. 

For this post I want to focus on the Viet Hoa Supermarket. If you haven't ever been, it's on Alameda, just 1 mile east of Wadsworth Blvd, and it's my go-to store for Asian noodles, hot pepper sauces, fresh basil and frozen dumplings. They also carry a decent kimchi, perfect for homemade Korean tacos.

It's a big store, located in a more or less decrepit strip mall. The vast, empty parking lot is not sexy. There's no where to lock your bike, even though the location is very bike-able (it's connected to Belmar by bike path). It's pretty much the antithesis of smart urban design.

But thank goodness it's here, as it often saves me a trip across town to H-Mart, when I'm in need of a specific ingredient for a dish I'm craving.

Update March 2013

Viet Hoa has moved from the location mentioned here, but thankfully just a little bit down the road. The new location is at Alameda and Sheridan, on the northwest corner of the street.

Belmar: What's in a Name?

Why Belmar?

It's a strange name for a neighborhood in suburban Denver, with its Latinate suggestion of "beautiful" and "sea." When you google it, Belmar, New Jersey pops up as often as not. So where did the name come from?

A century ago, the area that is now downtown Lakewood was considered the country-- and just the right distance from the hustle and bustle of Denver for a quick weekend getaway. May Bonfils, daughter of Denver Post magnate Frederick Bonfils, chose the location for her 750 acre country estate, which she named Belmar.

According to biographer Jeanne Varnell, Belmar was "a private paradise," with a ornate wrought iron gates, a fountain, and a twenty-room mansion modeled after the Petit Trianon palace at Versailles. "Peacocks paraded on the lawn," and "swans floated on Grassmere Lake." She drove a Rolls Royce, "the costliest car ever sold in Colorado," and "her 70.2-carat diamond, the Idol's Eye, was one of the world's great diamonds."

May furnished the mansion with exotic furniture and art from her travels in Europe. Again, according to Varnell, May "brought back a Marie-Antoinette bed, a piano said to have been played by Chopin, and a gold chair bearing Queen Victoria's crest.

After her death, her antiques and jewelry were sold. The mansion went to the Catholic Church, which in turn sold it off to developers. The house was demolished and replaced by a nondescript office building and a parking lot. All that remains today is a series of stone steps that lead down to Kountze Lake.

Photos of May Bonfil's Belmar in it's glory days are available here: http://digital.denverlibrary.org/cdm/singleitem/collection/p15330coll22/id/8643/rec/9

Firestone Auto Center At Belmar

I'm not sure how I missed this, but a Firestone Complete Auto Care will be going in a 575 S. Vance Street in Belmar. This is the vacant parcel on the northwest corner of West Center Avenue and S. Vance Street, just south of the proposed Chick-fil-A and across the street from KB Home's residential development.

Case Number:	SP12002
Project Name:	Firestone Tire Center at Belmar Site Plan
Address:	575 S Vance St
Applicant:	Mays and Company
Owner:	Block 9 Asset, LLC
Project Status:	With Applicant 3rd time
Last Status Date:	08/17/2012
Description:	Construction of new 8,800 s.f. Firestone Tire Center

Yes on 3A & 3B

On November 6th, residents of downtown Lakewood (and all residents of Jefferson County!) will have the chance to shore up the damage done to our local school system by the recession.

Good schools are essential to protecting property values and encouraging businesses and people to relocate to our area. For decades the Jefferson County Public Schools enjoyed a reputation as the best school system in the Denver metro area. Declining revenues over the last decade, however, have resulted in cut after cut-- and that was before the recession that started in 2008. Since then, per pupil funding has dropped an additional $761, and is now $100 below the state average. And folks, the state average in Colorado is $1400 below the national average!

Such a low level of funding is corrosive. Essential maintenance is being deferred. The school year is being shortened via furlough days. Programs like music and libraries are being eliminated. Class size is up, and schools are having trouble recruiting and retaining the best teachers.

A yes vote on 3A & 3B is a vote to stop this slide. Good schools are as essential to successful urban renewal as good planning and good design.

Connecting Downtown Lakewood

Anyone who lives in Belmar knows that crossing Wadsworth on foot is an unpleasant task. It's too many lanes and too many cars, and as a result, downtown Lakewood is effectively cut in half.

So it was nice to read in the Lakewood Sentinel that the city is finally taking seriously the need to unify Belmar, Lakewood Commons, Belmar Park, and the Lakewood Civic Center.

The City of Lakewood has also put up a web page for the Downtown Lakewood Connectivity and Urban Design Plan, announcing a series of public workshops.

Perhaps most promising of all, the city's webpage states that the "study will evaluate transit options in the area, as well as possible connections to the West Corridor light rail stations at Wadsworth and the Federal Center."

Chick-fil-A Proposed Site Plan

Here are the draft plans for the proposed Belmar Chick-fil-A. The building sits on the corner of S. Vance and W. Virginia Ave, with the drive-through lane wrapping around the building. Drive-through patrons would order on the northeast corner and pick-up on the west side of the building.

You can see that the planned buffer between the drive-through and the residential property on the other side of S. Vance is a 3 foot screen wall, along with varied trees and other landscaping.

Although I would not want to live across the street from a drive-through fast food restaurant, the property is zoned 4-C, which is different from the rest of Belmar's PD (planned development) zoning. According to the City of Lakewood, 4-C allows for "larger commercial uses such as bowling alleys, shopping centers, supermarkets or museums." I would hope that anyone buying a home across the street from vacant 4-C land would go into it with their eyes open.

My concern is the vast amounts of parking that this plan calls for. Does a Chick fil-A really need almost 50 parking spaces? It's two thirds of the site, and no matter how well landscaped, it's a parking lot that will likely be vacant most of the time.

This is especially problematic when you consider the vast amount of under used parking that exits on the 1st Bank property immediately to the west of the Chick-fil-A site.

Oceans of asphalt are simply not good urban planning, and not what we need if the intersection of Alameda and Wadsworth is truly to become downtown Lakewood.

Chick-fil-A Proposed for Belmar

ZC3 has filed a plan with the city of Lakewood to put in a Chick-fil-A with drive through at the corner of S. Vance St and W. Virginia Ave (details below).

Wow. Unless thoughtfully designed, this seems likely to put a damper on sales of the KB Home duplexes that are immediately opposite-- I can't imagine walking out my front door to see cars idling in a fast food drive-though. There's also the issue of the odors generated by fast food restaurants.

And of course the fact that the last thing the world needs is another Chick-fil A.

At any rate, pictures of a depressingly suburban Chick-fil A built by the applicant in Aurora are available here.

Case Number:	SP12017
Project Name:	Chick-fil-A at Belmar Site Plan
Address:	565 S Vance St
Applicant:	ZC3, LLC
Owner:	Continuum Partners LLC
Project Status:	1st Submittal
Last Status Date:	08/10/2012
Description:	New 4,688 sq.ft. restaurant with drive-through in 4-C district