Costco near Fort Collins??? (Denver, Colorado Springs: real estate, how much, house)

[Wurzig]

I was there last week checking out CSU with my daughter and doing a little house hunting.....the real estate lady said there was talk that a Costco might be built somewhere in or near Ft. Collins....does anybody know anything? I practically live at mine in CA, and driving all the way to Longmont (or is it Loveland???), will be a chore because I am so used to being at mine within 5 minutes.....sigh...... (There are certain things one looks for when moving to a 'foreign area', and Costco is one of mine.....pathetic, I know)....

Anyway, has anybody heard anything?

[Neditate]

There is a Costco in Thornton which is probably the closest, but that's a good 40 miles away. No Costco in Longmont or Loveland.
Find a Costco warehouse
Their website lists where new ones are opening but I haven't found any info on one near Ft. Collins.
http://www.costco.com/Service/Featur...uctNo=11203456

P.S. there are no Trader Joes here and they have no plans to put any in Colorado in the near future.

[golfgod]

Yep, the Thornton one is closest, about 35 minutes each way from my house in Loveland. But we adapt by just making a stop on our way back from Denver, the mountains or wherever. It's not economical to drive there and back so we just make sure that we have a month or more of the stuff we buy there or we buy more. We actually have cheaper gas stations in Loveland and Ft Collins.

golfgod

[Wurzig]

Gosh, this is terrible news! Heck, I buy those big containers of cherub grape tomatoes once or twice a week, bananas, too....my husband eats them like candy! And they have the cheapest gas pumps in the area, too.

Headed north towards Ft. Collins, (from the airport in Denver), seems like we saw one along the road..right hand side...I think we were on I-25, but not sure.......looking at the map, is that the one in Thornton? (I am guessing because it was night time plus I was in the back seat but I don't remember seeing a sign that said Thornton city limits, etc).

I live about 3 minutes from a TJ's. They definitely have unique items.

I've heard that Ft. Collins has a Sam's Club.....but somebody told me that Costco is superior....I've never been inside a Sam's....any input?

[Mike Weber]

I've never been into a Costco, but we do have a Sam's, as does Loveland. The bulk prices seem to be pretty good, but we typically by our produce at the grocery store, so I could not give much input to the quality of the produce.

The least expensive gas I have encountered in Ft C. is on the west side of town, or at Riverside and Mulberry. In Loveland I usually find the station at Taft and Hwy 34 is pretty reasonable.

[golfgod]

Yep, the Western station at Taft and 34 is cheap, as is the one on (Taft) South Shields in Ft Collins at Drake (?) I think. The King Soopers on Taft @ south 14th is cheap if you have a King Soopers (Kroger) discount card and another quck stop station just south of 1st is pretty cheap.

There's another cheap station in Ft Collins, it's on South Shields and it's at the next main intersection north of Harmony.

I haven't often found produce at Costco to be a great buy but that may be because there's only two of us.

golfgod

[Wurzig]

Does Sam's have gas? Not all Costcos have gas.....a lot of it depends on if they have enough land to build after they install the parking lots.

Compared to some of the grocery stores around here, produce is cheaper at Costco, even if you have to toss a couple of the bananas in the end.... It is usually good quality at Costco..... When my sister-in-law took me through the Sunflower/Sunshine ???? Market, the produce looked to be very healthy, especially considering it's winter..... I think she also buys from a lot of farmers once the stands open....

I recognize some of the streets....Shields, Harmony, Mulberry......thanks for all your input......

Ralphs (here) is owned by Kroger......so, when you are talking about a discount card, it's the same number you use in a store to get the so-called discounts, correct? No grocery stores here have gas stations attached.....well, sometimes pit stops like 7-11 do, but no major food stores.....

[Mike Weber]

Yes, your Ralphs / Kroger / City Market / King Soopers card is the one to get you the gas discounts. Safeway also has gas stations at which their grocery card accumulates discounts, depending on how much you spend in a month on groceries.

The Sam's in Fort Collins does not have gas pumps. I don't remember if the Loveland Sam's does.

Mike Weber

[tfox]

There was some talk earlier about Costco being an anchor tenant at a new development in the tiny town of Timnath, on Fort Collins southeastern borders at Harmony & I-25. That may have stalled due to the bad economy, however. But if you're holding out for Costco then that would at least indicate interest from the parent company, and of course Costco is already expanding in both Denver Metro and in Colorado Springs.

Trader Joe's, on the other hand, has shown no sign whatsoever of moving into Colorado, much as the population here would like them to do so. There has been much discussion on this topic -- one theory is that restrictive liquor laws are the difference maker, though some states like MD and PA have similar laws and do have TJ's. Another factor is possibly Colorado's unusual isolation from other metro areas, though the same thing could be said for Santa Fe, NM, which DOES have a TJ's. It bears pointing out that there's a lot of bigger states (Texas, for example) that don't have any issues with liquor laws or with isolation, and they still don't have TJ's either. I'd have to think that a market like Texas is going to get expansion before Colorado will.

In-n-out burger is another frequently asked about chain, but we're too far from their distribution network in Southern California, apparently, although Salt Lake City, UT apparently is just barely within their radius. I doubt we'll see an expansion from them unless they decide to open up a second distribution center somewhere, although even then I'd wonder if we'd be within their radius.

Ikea, on the other hand, is the next-most requested store by city-data relocatees, and there IS an Ikea under construction in Centennial, CO, a suburb of Denver.

[golfgod]

Sam's in Loveland has gas but my neighbor says it's not that cheap, and the store is pretty small too. Not cheap enough for me to get a Sam's card anyway.

golfgod