Hispanic Food Hall and Marketplace La Plaza Opens March 29

After nearly four years of setbacks, construction delays and frayed nerves, Doug McMurrain is excited for his latest development project to open.

La Plaza Marketplace is located in a former K-Mart at 15200 East Colfax in Aurora,and will debut at 10 a.m. on Friday, March 29. But it’s still “not the grand opening," he notes. "We’re only going to soft-open because it’s going to take a little bit of time to get everybody settled. The grand opening will probably be four, five months away." Even so, it’s a milestone worth celebrating, which McMurrain plans to do with a live band and other festivities.

At 100,000 square feet, La Plaza is “a village, that’s the best way to describe it,” McMurrain says. “It’s a village that has a grocery store, has market stalls and it has a food hall. We have 24 food-hall kitchens, which will be the largest Hispanic food hall in the United States.” Among the dining options will be a pizza restaurant that offers grasshopper-topped pies and McMurrain’s own concept, Roberto’s Famous Smash Burgers.

La Plaza will also have a family entertainment center, including a Hyperdeck programmed with 225,000 immersive virtual reality experiences and a sprawling arcade; a bar called El Mercado; repurposed shipping containers that will be used as event spaces; a women’s salon; and a full med spa.

Other than Central Bank, none of the businesses are chains or owned by corporations. The goal of La Plaza is to provide entrepreneurial opportunities for local, Hispanic mom-and-pop shops. The smallest stall is 8 feet by 10 feet, costs $400 per month, requires no credit check and can be rented month-to-month.

“The cool thing is that 54 percent of the 120-plus businesses we have in here are Hispanic, female-owned businesses — 75 percent of our 24 food-hall kitchens,” McMurrain notes. “The management team is run by my daughter, so it will be a female-led management team running this project.”
McMurrain is from Aurora but started his career in Princeton, New Jersey, as a Walmart developer. He’s also built Home Depots and Targets all over the country. He had just started the process of securing deals with big-box clients for a project in Atlanta when his lender suggested temporarily setting up a flea market in the space. The result, Plaza Fiesta, "took off like wildfire," McMurrain recalls. "It was way more profitable than a Walmart, and I paid $10.5 million for the property. I sold it for $56 million to the California State Teacher Retirement System in 2006 and they sold it for $86 million in 2022."

First and foremost a developer, McMurrain is clear that he wouldn't be doing another project like Plaza Fiesta unless it was profitable. But a master's thesis written by Sarah Lindley Marske about Plaza Fiesta's influence in Atlanta opened his eyes to the community benefits. The project's marketing “sent the message that if a Latino has left his or her hometown, missed being there, and wanted to feel at home again, Plaza Fiesta was the only place to be," Lindley Marske wrote. "Whatever Latin American country a person has come from, they could feel as if they were at home at Plaza Fiesta because it was the Latin Capital of Georgia.”

“One of the things I love about the Hispanic community is they’re incredibly hard-working people," McMurrain says. "They love their families. They love their food, their music. They like to have fun, and we give them a place where they can be Latino and not be looked down on. A place where they’re treated fair and with respect. ... Developing Plaza Fiesta Atlanta was more rewarding than all thirteen Walmarts combined that I did. I developed a project that helped people open businesses, and the Hispanic community is one of the most entrepreneurial groups of folks you’ll ever meet in your whole life.”
He developed a similar marketplace in Charlotte, North Carolina, before deciding to bring one to his hometown in Colorado. He took occupancy of the building in December 2017, bought it in April 2019, parceled out a portion to VASA Fitness and began signing tenants for La Plaza. Then COVID hit and banks turned sour on gyms and retail projects.

During that time, McMurrain began offering the parking lot as a space for displaced food trucks to operate. “I started getting three calls a day, ‘I’ve got no place to go; the brewery shut down; there are no events; there are no public gatherings.’ And I said, ‘Come here, set up here,’” he remembers. He charged vendors $300 a month and at one point had up to fifty businesses setting up shop — until the Aurora Health Department came in.

McMurrain admits the setup was a rushed response to COVID, and he worked with the city to bring the food vendors up to code. It's remained a gathering place for food trucks ever since, but La Plaza does not have a permit to continue hosting the mobile food businesses.

The understanding is that once the marketplace opens, all the food truck vendors will move inside and the outdoor area will only be permitted for special events such as concerts, movie nights and holiday celebrations. "The City of Aurora has been an amazing government body to work with, all the way from Mike Coffman down to his staff," McMurrain notes. "Nothing but super professional and a pleasure to work with. .. Aurora is a good place to do business.”
But there were many challenges along the way, including material delays, limited general contractor capacity and high turnover of the construction crew. This is the most difficult project he’s ever done, McMurrain says, and it has cost him roughly $20 million to build out, so he’s pretty excited for the soft opening.

“We still have some construction that’s going to be ongoing to get the kitchens open, get some of the kiosks open, get the grocery store open," he adds. "But we'll have salsa dance nights on Wednesday and Thursday, live music Friday, Saturday, Sunday. We’ll bring in some big bands — we’ve got the El Mercado bar and a live music dance floor."

Next up for McMurrain: opening more marketplaces like La Plaza. "I’m a big-box developer. I used to build them ground up, and now my plan is to go buy big boxes and apply my model in major metro cities that have large Hispanic demographics,” he says, adding that he already has his eyes on former Kmart, Walmart and JCPenney locations in twenty cities across the country. “Aurora will be my home base and my flagship to launch La Plazas across the United States."

La Plaza Colorado is located at 15200 East Colfax, Aurora ,and will be open 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Thursday and 10 a.m. to midnight Friday through Sunday starting March 29. For more information, visit facebook.com/laplazacolorado.