In mid-August, the Pikes Peak Regional Building Department issued permits for a Whataburger at the corner of East Woodmen and Meridian roads. No opening date came with it. That is not an oversight. It is how this corner of Falcon has always worked.
If you live in Woodmen Hills, you have probably noticed the same thing about the shopping center at your doorstep: something new is always rumored, permitted, or under construction, but almost nothing there opens on a schedule you could actually plan around. Meanwhile, a few miles inside the subdivision, the Woodmen Hills Metropolitan District keeps running the same recreation calendar it has run for years, on dates you can circle in September and trust. Two clocks, same zip code. One is corporate. One is yours.
The Corporate Clock Runs on Its Own Time
Falcon Marketplace, the shopping center anchored by King Soopers at Woodmen and Meridian, is the clearest example of how long a chain restaurant's internal timeline can stretch. Proposals for a Chipotle and a Dunkin' at the site surfaced with county planners back in November 2022. Chipotle didn't actually open until late December 2023, just weeks ahead of the King Soopers Marketplace grand opening on January 24, 2024. That's more than a year between the paperwork and the parking lot.
By the time King Soopers cut the ribbon, the center already had Slim Chickens, Panda Express, Dutch Bros Coffee, Freddy's Frozen Custard & Steakburgers, Discount Tire, Mattress Firm, and Super Star Car Wash open and running. A Goodwill of Colorado thrift store was announced for the west side of the grocery store around the same time. Every one of these arrived on its own corporate timeline, not on any schedule tied to the neighborhood itself.
That's the pattern the Whataburger permit fits into now. A $1.4 million build was just approved for the same intersection, and the builder hasn't said when it opens. Based on how the rest of the center has rolled out, "sometime next year" is a reasonable guess. A firm date isn't.
What's actually open and operating at Falcon Marketplace right now, based on the most recent reporting:
- King Soopers Marketplace (124,000 square feet, with a Starbucks, Murray's Cheese counter, sushi station, and fuel station)
- Chipotle Mexican Grill, with a drive-up "Chipotlane" pickup lane
- Panda Express, Slim Chickens, and Freddy's Frozen Custard & Steakburgers
- Dutch Bros Coffee
- Discount Tire and Super Star Car Wash
The Whataburger will eventually add to that list. Just don't build your fall plans around it.
The District's Clock Hasn't Missed a Beat
While the corner of Woodmen and Meridian runs on chain time, the district's own recreation calendar runs on a much steadier rhythm, and September is a good month to see it in action.
On Sunday, September 13, the Woodmen Hills Recreation Center East is hosting Fall Into Wellness, a free health event running from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on the grass by the parking lot at 9205 Meridian Ranch Boulevard. It's the kind of event that doesn't make headlines outside the community, but it happens every year at roughly the same point in the calendar, which is more than you can say for the shopping center.
A few other fixtures worth knowing if you live here:
The Falcon Garden Club meets the third Saturday of every month at Community Center West, 11720 Woodmen Hills Drive, from 10 a.m. to noon. It goes dark in June, July, August, and December, then picks back up right where it left off.
The Eastern Plains Chamber of Commerce holds its monthly breakfast the first Wednesday of every month at 7:30 a.m., at Grace Community Church on Grace Church View in Falcon.
The district's annual Fall Festival returns to the park calendar this season with a live band, inflatables, a pumpkin patch, local vendor booths, and photo opportunities, the same combination it runs every year according to the district's own events listing.
And if you'd rather run off some Halloween candy than eat it, the Woodmen Hills Monster Mash 5K and Beer Mile is set for October 31, timed the way it always is, on the holiday itself.
None of this is glamorous. That's the point. It's also the part of the neighborhood that shows up reliably, year after year, while the retail corner a few minutes away keeps making promises on a corporate calendar nobody local controls.
Why the Difference Actually Matters
It's easy to read local news about a new drive-thru and treat it as the story of the neighborhood. But the businesses at Falcon Marketplace answer to franchise agreements, construction schedules, and corporate real estate teams headquartered somewhere else entirely. They'll show up eventually. Some, like the Dunkin' once proposed for a site near Meridian Road and Bent Grass Meadows Drive, went through county planning with no opening date ever attached to the public filing.
The Woodmen Hills Metropolitan District answers to the people who live here and pay into it. Its pools close for a scheduled week in early August for maintenance and reopen right after, the same way every summer. Its concert series runs through July on a set schedule, its garden club meets on the third Saturday whether or not a new restaurant has opened up the road, and its Fall Into Wellness event lands in mid-September like it does most years.
If you've been waiting on the shopping center to tell you something's changing in the neighborhood, you might be waiting a while longer. If you want to know what's actually happening here this fall, the more reliable read is the district's own calendar, not the county's permit records.
A Quick Note on the Address
If you've ever registered for a Woodmen Hills event or a race at the Recreation Center East and noticed the listing shows a Peyton, Colorado address, that's not an error. Mailing addresses in this stretch of unincorporated El Paso County don't always match what residents call their neighborhood day to day. It's a small quirk, but it explains why some local event listings for Woodmen Hills programming show up under a different town name than the one on your subdivision sign.
Where This Leaves You
Falcon keeps growing, and the retail strip at Woodmen and Meridian will keep adding names to its lineup on a schedule set somewhere far from here. That's worth watching, if only because it changes what's a five-minute drive from home. But the neighborhood's actual texture, the part that makes living here feel consistent from one September to the next, comes from the district's own calendar. That one keeps its promises.
If you're weighing what it's like to actually live in Woodmen Hills day to day, or you're curious how a neighborhood like this holds its value while the surrounding commercial corridor keeps expanding, Tami Belsey and her team know this stretch of the Pikes Peak region from the inside. Reach out anytime you want a local read on what's really happening here, not just what's been permitted.
