© Provided by Denver Post Boulder-based natural foods grocer Lucky's Market in Wheat Ridge on Oct. 26, 2018.

A little more than a month after industry giant Kroger announced its plans to sell off its stake in the fast-growing chain, Boulder County-based grocer Lucky’s Market is closing stores across the country including three of its five locations in Colorado.

A planned sixth Colorado store — set to be the company’s first in the city of Denver — has been nixed, developers working on the project say.

On Tuesday afternoon with rumors swirling about which locations would survive and which stores would be shuttered, Lucky’s representatives took to the Facebook page for the chain’s flagship store at 695 S. Broadway in Boulder to announce the store will be shutting down in the near future.

“There has been some recent news circulating about Lucky’s stores closing. Unfortunately, our South Boulder store will be closing and starting tomorrow, we will be offering significant discounts on all products in the store,” the post read. “We want to thank you for shopping with us. We’ve made some amazing friendships and together have supported some incredible community organizations.”

The message appears to be a form post. At almost the exact same time, the Facebook page for the company’s store at 3545 Wadsworth Blvd. in Wheat Ridge, posted nearly the same message. The store at 700 Ken Pratt Blvd. in Longmont also posted the closing message on its page.

“I am so sorry. With your big investor pulling out I can imagine it has been rough,” Facebook user Kia Ru commented on the Wheat Ridge post. “Best of luck to all of you. You have had a great team working there.”

The Facebook updates come after developers confirmed that a forthcoming Lucky’s store planned for Denver’s Lowry neighborhood will not be opening. Speaking on behalf of project co-developer Confluent Development, spokesman Andy Boian on Tuesday said that a Lucky’s location is no longer planned as part of the Boulevard One project being built at the corner of East First Avenue and South Quebec Street. It was the grocer’s decision, Boian said.

“So Lucky’s basically within the last 90 days told us they are not moving into Boulevard One,” said Boian, adding that the change will not impact the project’s timeline. “It’s full steam ahead. We are actually talking to another grocer. We open in spring 2021.”

Lucky’s was slated to take on 25,000 square feet in the shopping center. It would have been the company’s first store in Denver city limits. The decision not to open there was first reported by BusinessDen.

If there’s solace for Lucky’s fans in Colorado, it’s that the company has announced its original store in north Boulder and its newest location in Fort Collins will remain open.

“There has been some recent news circulating about Lucky’s stores closing. We want to assure you that your store in North Boulder will remain open and we look forward to serving you, our loyal customers. Please come in soon to visit us,” company representatives wrote on the Facebook page for the store at 3960 Broadway in Boulder.

And the grocer isn’t just shrinking in its home state.

The South Florida Sun Sentinel reported Tuesday that Lucky’s is closing all but one of its stores in the state. Florida was by far Lucky’s largest market, home to 21 of its 39 stores. By mid-February just one of those stores — the location in West Melbourne — will remain open.

“We’re obviously saddened by the news. It’s a great concept; people loved the concept,” Jason Rief, a regional store director with the company told the Sun Sentinel. The store closures will impact 2,500 jobs, the story said.

Founded by Bo and Trish Sharon in Boulder in 2003, Lucky’s tagline is “Organic for the 99%.” The company sought to fill a niche as a health food grocer that also carried more mainstream items like Oreos and offered competitive prices.

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After Kroger made an undisclosed but significant investment in the company in 2016, its growth accelerated. After it opened its Wheat Ridge store, its first metro area location, in 2018, Bo Sharon was cautiously optimistic about Lucky’s prospects in its home state.

“Availability is key — finding the right spots, of course, to be successful,” he told the Denver Post at the time. “While the Denver market is heavy, there are pockets where folks aren’t doing what we do, so that is sort of the start.”

Thirteen months later, Kroger announced it was pulling out of Lucky’s, taking a $131 million non-cash loss as a result. According to Kroger’s quarterly financial results released in December, the total write-down attributable to Lucky’s was $238 million but $107 million of that was owned by minority investors in the company.

In an earnings call on Dec. 5, Kroger chief financial office Gary Millerchip chalked up the decision to divest from Lucky’s to an ongoing commitment to being “disciplined in prioritizing capital allocation to improve return on invested capital and create sustainable shareholder return.”

Lucky’s representatives did not respond to calls or emails seeking comment for this story Tuesday.

What Ridge City Manager Patrick Goff said he did not hear from the company on Tuesday but was already talking to the developer of The Corners redevelopment project on Wadsworth about how best to backfill the space Lucky’s will soon leave empty.

“We’re disappointed,” Goff said. “The good news is we have a lot going on in Wheat Ridge and we’ve been diversifying our revenue base for years. We’re already talking about a strategy moving forward.”