Home Care In Lakewood, CO

Lakewood, CO (Dec. 9, 2025) – Today, Whole Foods Market opened a new 49,500-square-foot store located at 14225 W. Colfax Ave. in Lakewood, Co. The store is a relocation of the existing Colfax store (14357 W. Colfax Ave.), which has served the community for more than 27 years. The Colfax’s store’s product assortment includes more than 800 locally sourced items from Colorado, each meeting Whole Foods Market’s rigorous quality standards.

“Opening our new Lakewood store is an exciting moment for our team and this community,” said Robert Crouse, Store Team Leader at Whole Foods Market. “With a larger footprint and hundreds of Colorado-made products, we’re opening our doors with our same commitment to delicious food, great service, and a welcoming space for both our longtime customers and new neighbors alike.”

Opening morning, customers enjoyed complimentary juice from Big B’s, herbal coffee alternatives from Rasa and sweet bread bites from Outrageous Baking. The first 300 shoppers in line were given a limited-edition tote bag and a Secret Saver coupon, featuring offers of up to $100.

Additionally, on opening morning, Whole Foods Market provided a food donation to The Action Center, which makes regular surplus food pickups from local Whole Foods Market stores to help prevent food waste and serve the surrounding community. The donation is part of Whole Foods Market’s Nourishing Our Neighborhoods program, which aims to enhance the ability of local food rescue organizations to transport surplus food to areas facing the greatest need. Whole Foods Market is also donating to local organizations Denver Rescue Mission and Giving Heart Englewood.

Whole Foods Market also presented Denver-based supplier Lentiful with a low-interest loan through the Whole Foods Market Lending Program, to support their national expansion into approximately 390 Whole Foods Market locations. Through the program, Whole Foods Market lends money to small-scale, local or emerging producers to help them grow their businesses. To date, the retailer has provided 430 loans, representing roughly $39 million in capital for recipients.

Find more information on the features and product assortment in the new Colfax store here.

About Whole Foods Market

Founded in 1980, Austin-based Whole Foods Market is the world’s leading natural and organic foods retailer and the first certified organic national grocer in the United States. Part of Amazon’s Worldwide Grocery Stores, Whole Foods Market serves customers in more than 545 stores across the U.S., Canada, and the U.K. To learn more about Whole Foods Market, please visit https://media.wholefoodsmarket.com/.

In a groundbreaking partnership with Jeffco Public Schools, Lakewood’s Sustainability, Climate and Zero Waste Division has launched the first Zero Waste School Program in the city with Rose Stein International Elementary School. The program teaches school staff and students how to separate their leftover lunch items into the proper receptables for recycling and composting as part of an all-out effort to send zero lunch waste to the landfill.

After months of planning and training, Rose Stein students and staff kicked off the program in September, and the results were immediate. In just one week, the school composted more than 1,000 pounds of food waste and slashed cafeteria trash from six bags a day to just one.

With help from Colorado-based nonprofit Eco-Cycle, the school joined the ranks of over 100 Green Star Schools across the Front Range. Even more importantly, every year going forward, the waste reduction education is part of the curriculum, breaking down composting and recycling for kids through the partnership with EcoCycle.

"Our vision is to bring this program to every major school in Lakewood and evolve it to include more community members along the way,” said Em J Jackson, Lakewood’s zero waste & circularity planner. “The impact will be both immediate and long term. Integrating zero waste foundations into early education helps students form habits they take home with them, share with their families and bring to their next school."

The program will expand to one new school each academic year, with elementary schools prioritized followed by middle schools. The school will be selected to participate each year by Jeffco Public Schools leadership in conjunction with the City of Lakewood. Schools can self-nominate to join the program and will be selected based on readiness and potential for success.

The program is funded by Colorado’s mandated bag fees, which are to be dedicated to waste diversion programs.

With one school at a time, Lakewood is growing a greener future, starting with our youngest changemakers.

Community members are sharing concerns about the sale of a Colorado elementary school after they claim officials did not share enough information with the public on the purchase.

The City of Lakewood will have to delay a vote on the sale of Emory Elementary School to the Action Center, which was set for the final council meeting on October 27th.

While the public hearing will still be held, a judge's order prohibits the council from voting amid a pending lawsuit alleging violations of Colorado's Open Meetings Laws.

The city revealed in April that it plans to pay Jefferson County Public Schools $4 million for the 17-acre property, which has been closed for years. However, residents and former city officials have questioned how the sale price was determined and whether the public was properly informed during the negotiation process.

"The appraised price was much, much higher," City Manager Kathy Hodgson said during the April council meeting when the purchase was authorized to move forward; neither she nor the school district would reveal the numbers.

Lakewood was given first dibs on the property as part of the district's municipal interest process, a sort of first right of refusal for local governments.

Neighbors at the same April meeting raised concerns that plans for the property's future were already underway, even as they were just learning of the plan to purchase and then resell the property.

"I'm deeply concerned this is the first we've heard about the plans," resident Derek Smith said during that meeting in April. "It feels like the lack of transparency is trying to circumvent public input and go behind our backs."

The city is not yet the official owner of the property, as it awaits JeffCo school board approval expected in November. It had planned to sell the site to The Action Center by the end of October. The nonprofit hopes to transform the former school into a community resource center offering healthcare, food assistance and family services.

The proposed transfer is essentially a land swap: The Action Center would receive the Emory property in exchange for its current building near West Colfax, which would go to the city. That plan now remains on hold pending the outcome of legal proceedings.

"Something doesn't jive with me that the school district is wasting millions of taxpayer dollars by giving this property to the city, knowing the city intends to act as a pass-through to give it away to a nongovernmental organization," said former council member and civil rights attorney Anita Springsteen.

Springsteen filed the lawsuit that led to the delay, alleging that early discussions about the Emory transaction took place behind closed doors without proper public notice, in violation of Colorado's Open Meeting Laws.

"I think they owe the public information," Springsteen said. "It's very clear that from the start, the private executive sessions they were having behind closed doors were establishing policies and positions that should be done in an open forum. The public should have the opportunity to weigh in and express concerns."

In a statement responding to questions about the process, a city of Lakewood spokesperson said: "We want to assure the community that we have taken every step to make our work clear and publicly available, and we have worked to inform the community about this process in numerous ways."

The city added that real estate negotiations are commonly conducted confidentially to reach tentative terms, and once that occurred, all required public notices were issued.

A judge will weigh in on the legal concerns before any decisions about the Emory property going to the action center can move forward.

Jeffco Public Schools declined an interview and did not answer questions about how the $4 million sale price was determined or what the property's appraised value is. A district spokesperson said that information would be released ahead of the school board's meeting next month.

The Action Center initially agreed to meet with CBS Colorado for an interview at the Emory site, but canceled due to an urgent matter.

A prominent Sarasota-based brewery with three locations is closing one spot as it consolidates its operations. The closing of the location, the owner and a manager told the Business Observer, stem from size and logistics issues, and aren't connected to several lawsuits and a countersuit the company is involved in over allegations of unpaid debts.

Big Top Brewing Co. is shutting down its Lakewood Ranch store, which is called Big Top Brewers Collective. Its other two businesses — Big Top Brewing Restaurant and Brewery at Fruitville Commons and Big Top Live on Cattlemen Road — will remain open, and it will begin brewing operations at the Fruitville location.

“We’ve been planning Lakewood Ranch’s move” for eight months, Big Top Brewing co-owner Mike Bisaha says in a phone interview Oct. 30, the last day in business for Big Top Brewers Collective.

The Lakewood Ranch Boulevard store has 3,000 square feet of production space and 13-foot ceilings, according to Bisaha, who says it could not meet the production needs of the company.

To brew Big Top’s beer, “we have tanks that are 26 feet tall — they don’t fit,” Bisaha says. “Lakewood Ranch was never designed for us to be there” long-term, he adds. “It was literally just a place for us to be able to continue while Fruitville was built.”

Big Top Brewing Company’s Fruitville Commons location — which opened in 2024 — spans 18,000 square feet and has the capacity for 700, the Business Observer previously reported. It has 8,000 square feet of production space with 32-foot ceilings, Bisaha says.

“Fruitville was always designed to be the one primary head of Big Top,” Bisaha says, with food and beverage production handled on-site. "We’ve been handicapped on production" due to the size of the Lakewood Ranch facility.

Big Top Brewers Collective “was never meant to be our production brewery. We only went into Lakewood Ranch because our Fruitville location was delayed” during construction, he says.

Soon, patrons at Fruitville Commons will be able to see the brewhouse at work, according to Bisaha, who says the operation is being assembled and will triple its production capacity.

“We finally have the new brew system at Fruitville and tanks shifted over there,” Bisaha says. "At Fruitville, the location is doing incredible. There is no point for us to have two production facilities that close together. It’s not easy to set up a massive production brewery. We’re a very large production brewery."

Situated at the end of a shopping center on Lakewood Ranch Boulevard, the Big Top Brewers Collective space seats about 100 people, Big Top Logistics Manager Anthony Juliano says, speaking with the Business Observer outside the store in Manatee County its last day in business. Juliano, echoing Bisaha, says the location was “really small."

The seven staff members who worked at Big Top Brewers Collective will be reassigned to the other locations, according to Juliano.

Closing Big Top Brewers Collective was unrelated to the legal battles that currently involve Big Top Brewing Co., according to Bisaha.

Big Top is in the middle of lawsuits with multiple lenders claiming it has not made payments on loans ranging from $600,000 to $4 million. The $600,000 case centers around a loan from SouthState Bank, and attorneys say they are working on a resolution.

Another lawsuit, meanwhile, appears to be headed to trial, involving a $4 million loan for the construction of the brewery’s Fruitville Commons location. Big Top in September filed a counterclaim against the lender, alleging the business was overcharged. The lender has since denied that claim.

“Big Top’s not going anywhere,” Bisaha says. “We stand firm about why we are countersuing them. We are a small business battling a $300 million fund and we look forward to having all the facts come out.”

A civil trial for the case is tentatively scheduled for May 4, 2026.