Kum & Go Continuing Rapid Expansion in Colorado

WEST DES MOINES, Iowa — Kum & Go LC is continuing its rapid expansion into the Pikes Peak region of Colorado, with four more convenience stores planned for the area, reported the Colorado Springs Gazette. The addition of these four locations would bring the Iowa-based chain's total to 17 stores in the area.

New Colorado Springs stores are planned for Powers and Dublin boulevards; Wooten Road and Platte Avenue; and Research Parkway and Chapel Hills Drive, according to documents submitted to the city's Land Use Review Division. A fourth store is planned north of Woodmen and Meridian roads in the unincorporated El Paso County, according to commercial real estate company CBRE Group Inc.

These new stores further Kum & Go's goal of opening 20 to 25 c-stores in the area during the next five years, which company officials discussed in 2012 prior to opening the first location. Currently, the majority of the area stores are located in Colorado Springs, with several in Fountain and Monument, Colo., as well.

"They're pretty committed to this market, which means they still want to grow within El Paso County," Mark Useman, a broker with Colorado Springs Commercial who has represented Kum & Go in the region, told the news outlet. "But they're very particular of which other sites they pick."

Kum & Go has purposely selected highly visible locations along busy corridors that have good access and are near fast-growing residential and commercial areas, Useman said.

He also noted the family-owned chain's growth proves that consumers like the options that Kum & Go and other c-stores provide.

"We all need to be able to get gas, No. 1," he said. "And while you're there, by the way, if they have a nice offering of food and beverages and other things that you need, you're going to go in the store."