Bigg's, which is one of a chain of 12 located across the country, is owned by Supervalu of Minnesota. It opened with great fanfare in 1989. With 240,000-sf, it dwarfed anything else in the metro area. It had anchored the 700,000-sf Thornton Town Center at East 104th Avenue and Interstate 25.

Although there was talk of opening another Bigg's in Golden, it never happened. The store never established a local identity. Over the years, the store contracted in size, to an estimated 200,000-sf, before it quietly closed its doors. Plans now call for it to be replaced with a Super Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart has a 102,000-sf store near Bigg's that it will close when it moves into a new space.

"If a new free-standing Wal-Mart had opened near Bigg's, it would have crushed Bigg's like an empty beer can," one retail broker tells GlobeSt.com. "The city of Thornton thought it would be better for Wal-Mart to take over the old Bigg's store."

Bigg's came from the European "hyper-market" concept, where one could buy everything from groceries to electronics to tires at a "one-stop shopping" store. The idea is now common, with everyone from Wal-Mart, to Target, Kmart and Costco doing it, notes Tom Mathews, a retail broker with CB Richard Ellis. But he says Bigg's was ahead of its time when it first came to the Denver area. And they never opened enough stores to build a loyal customer base, he says.