On May 10, Ben Hummel, owner of Hummel Investments, held a town hall meeting at Falcon High School in Falcon School District 49 to update the community about the status of the Falcon Marketplace project, which is comprised of . 36 acres at the northwest corner of Meridian Road and Woodmen Road.Initially, the project included a right-in, right-out access point off westbound Woodmen Road, Hummel said. However, on Dec. 13, 2016, the El Paso County Board of County Commissioners voted 3-2 to deny the proposal, citing concerns about the proposed access point. At that meeting, Steve Meier, director of development for Hummel, said without the access point, King Soopers, the proposed anchor for the shopping center, would likely choose to build in another location.Without King Soopers, several businesses indicated they would not be willing to open in the marketplace, Hummel said. Those businesses include Panera Bread, UCHealth, Centura Health, Chiliís, Firestone Complete Auto Care, Wells Fargo, PetSmart, Les Schwab Tire Center, Noodles & Company, Panda Express, Chipotle Mexican Grill, Arbyís, Ace Hardware and Starbucks.Hummel said residents have taken to social media to express their views about the project, and more than 90 percent of responses have been supportive. Mountain View Electric Association is in favor of the additional access point, and Falcon School District 49 likes the idea of having a different way to route their buses during the school day, he said. With such a positive response, Hummel said his company is working to get the proposal back in front of the BOCC.ìThere are two ways that we can get on the commissionerís agenda,î he said. ìWe can resubmit our proposal with evidence of a material change, or the commissioners can suspend the ruling and bring it back.î Hummel said making a material change is the most likely option.The proposed change would create a right-in only access point off Woodmen to a roundabout that would allow access to the shopping center, he said. The roundabout would only allow traffic out onto the frontage road, adjacent to Woodmen instead of directly onto Woodmen itself, Hummel said.Several community members voiced concern about other aspects of the project, including the potential traffic problems created by installing a traffic signal at Eastonville Road and Meridian Road. Residents living on Owl Place said they already have difficulty exiting their street onto Meridian; another light would only exacerbate the problem.Others are concerned about the state of the roads in the area, and additional traffic, without planned improvements on the part of Hummel Investments, could severely impact the condition of the streets.Hummel said the previous traffic study conducted for the initial proposal did not indicate any issues with the roads, including the ease of access onto Meridian from Owl Place.Kari Parsons, project manager/planner II for EPC, said nothing about the project has been finalized yet. ìIf we (EPC) get a new submittal with a right-in access, we will have to modify our traffic study at that time and then review the plans,î she said.Hummel said his company will submit the new plan soon and the county must agree that a material change has been made before the plans will be put on the BOCCís agenda. Until then, Hummel said he plans to continue holding town hall meetings to update the community about the project and get feedback from the residents.
