Amid Fort Collins Kmart redevelopment, pleas to save restaurant Maza Kabob are premature

Midtown Fort Collins' former Kmart building may be vacant — and quiet as a mouse — but that hasn't kept speculation over its future from swirling and spilling over to nearby businesses.

In a Jan. 3 Facebook post, Fort Collins' Matador Mexican Grill claimed one of the buildings located just north of the former department store had recently been sold, with plans for the building to meet the wrecking ball.

But after calls to the Larimer County Assessor's Office and the city's development review office this week, the Coloradoan determined that's not the case.

The post was made in an appeal to help Maza Kabob, a beloved Afghan restaurant that leases a space in the building and would lose its location if such plans were true. Other businesses that call the building home include a tailor shop, The Joint Smoke Shop and Mountain Mist Spas, which has been in that location since 1983.

They are a stone's throw from the shuttered Kmart, which was purchased in 2009 by Kroger Inc. and has long been slated as the future home of Fort Collins' next King Soopers store.

Omar Sayied, who runs Maza Kabob with his parents, Sayed and Fariha, said his family hasn't received any communications about a possible sale of their building, where they opened their restaurant in September 2011.

"It would be almost impossible to move just because it requires quite a bit of capital," Omar said, adding that the family has looked at a few locations in case their building is sold, "but no matter how many places we've looked at, they'd all require quite a bit of work."

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After fleeing Afghanistan in 1981 amid its Soviet invasion, Sayed Sayied — then an engineering student — made a life in the United States running restaurants in New York and a vendor cart in Denver, according to a 2009 Coloradoan article. He and Fariha later moved to Fort Collins, where they raised their family and ultimately opened Maza Kabob.

"(My father) always dreamed of opening his own restaurant with his own recipes," said Omar, who left his career as an electrical engineer in 2009 to help his parents run the family restaurant.

"We put a lot into it, you know? A lot of blood and sweat," Omar added. "And we were just starting to take off this last year or two."

According to Larimer County property records, ownership of the building Maza Kabob is housed in last changed hands in 2004. Since then, it's been owned by South College Avenue Shops LLC, which also owns the Inca Mexican restaurant building and a nearby building that is home to a liquor store and the since-shuttered Mulligan's Pub & Sports Club.

The Larimer County Assessor's Office confirmed that South College Avenue Shops LLC was still the buildings' owner as of Wednesday. Efforts by the Coloradoan to contact the owner of South College Avenue Shops LLC were not successful as of Friday afternoon.

Since Kmart closed the store's doors in 2016, talk has swirled about when Kroger Corp. would redevelop the location.

In October, Kroger Inc. told the Coloradoan it still plans to build a 123,419-square-foot store to replace its aging location just up the road at 2325 S. College Ave. At the time, spokeswoman Kelli McGannon said the company was tentatively hoping to open the store in 2022.

There has been no recent activity on the proposed King Soopers development, and its conceptual review applications — which were submitted in 2016 — expired in June 2017, Fort Collins Development Review Manager Rebecca Everette told the Coloradoan Monday.

The original site plan submitted for the project did not appear to show any major changes to the building footprint, such as an expansion to the north, Everette said.

"It appears the only building that would be demolished is the Kmart building," she added.

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A new conceptual review and neighborhood meeting would be required by the city before King Soopers could submit another development application for the site, according to Everette. Therefore, there would "plenty of heads up" before the development review process starts again.

When asked if King Soopers had plans to purchase and demolish neighboring buildings as part of an expansion of the project, the grocery chain said it is "considering its options to better serve the community" and that "no final decisions have been made at this time," according to Jessica Trowbridge of King Soopers' corporate affairs office.

If their building is sold, Omar Sayied said he's unsure what that would mean for the future of Maza Kabob. It could be forced to close permanently or close temporarily with a reopening at a later date.

"We just don't know anything," he added.

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