Given that there has been no official news forthcoming from Whole Foods about its planned Gowanus store, we turn to some promotional items for hints of what might, or might not, be coming. Yesterday, we had a photo that showed just how abandoned quiet the Whole Foods site at Third Street and Third Avenue is. There has been no work on the site for nearly two years, except for the demolition of one structure. At the opening party for Celebrate Brooklyn this year, Whole Foods again provided the bags in which the guests’ schwag was placed. There were two interesting things: 1. Whole Foods both provided bags and took out an ad in the program. 2. In 2007, Whole Foods bag said “coming in 2008.” This year, it was a generic Whole Foods cloth bag that talks about saving the environment from plastic bags. In addition, the Whole Foods program ad only notes its “Tribeca Stores” as coming soon. And so, it may be safe to say that Whole Foods is still coming, but that they are no longer saying exactly when. Given that it is already June, a 2009 opening seems increasingly like a long shot without a herculean construction push starting, like, tomorrow. A tremendous amount of site prep work (a “bathtub” for the underground part of the store”) and environmental remediation (toxins beneath need to be “capped” in place) would need to be done to be done on the site (if necessary permits are obtained). Coming in 2010, then? And, in the meantime, enjoy the bag.
8 responses so far ↓
1 Anonymous // Jun 17, 2008 at 9:47 am
Am I missing something… what is the big deal about Whole Foods? I’ve been in a couple and don’t understand the fuss.
2 el_chuppa_nibre // Jun 17, 2008 at 10:19 am
What have people come to. Are they that desperate for a corporate supermarket chain to invade their neighborhood, that they’re trying to divine future locations from the store’ s grocery bag.
This is utterly ridiculous. Well we haven’t seen any heavy machinery on the site or contractors, and the site is overgrown with vegetation, and the site is not on the “coming soon” section of their bags, but they will come. They will come and build in all their glory. All hail Wholefoods.
Seriously, this verges on the maniacal. it’s a bloody supermarket. They have them in the suburbs, you know. In White Plains, on Long Island.
Have you given thought to the fact that from a business perspective, it might not make sense to build there and they quietly shelved the plans. If it quacks like a duck and walks like a duck…
But really what galls me is this obsessive speculation as to when will the magical Whole Foods arrive. never, that’s when Monkey Boy.
3 Gabby // Jun 17, 2008 at 11:38 am
minus one whole foods store for brooklyn?
4 Benjamin Kabak // Jun 17, 2008 at 12:26 pm
At what point do you just give up and assume that the Whole Foods isn’t coming? No big loss either really. There are plenty of smaller, neighborhood stores in the area that more than make up for the “loss” of a Whole Foods in the PS/Gowanus area.
5 Anonymous // Jun 17, 2008 at 2:17 pm
Whole Foods is a mess. They should stay in Los Angeles. I don’t ever want it in my backyard and that is 3rd and 3rd.
6 Eric // Jun 17, 2008 at 6:19 pm
The status of Whole Foods’s permit application with the State Depaartment of Environmental Conservation is “incomplete.” That is, they have not provided DEC with all the information necessary to process an application. WF needs DEC approval because of the presence of wetlands on and adjacent to the site.
Which begs the question — is it even appropriate to build a supermarket where wetlands exist?
And I agree with the other posters: who cares about Whole Foods? It’s a supermarket, and a really expensive one at that. And the store they want to build in Brooklyn is a completely suburban model designed to cater to auto traffic, unlike a typical NYC supermarket.
Wrong place, wrong time, wrong store.
7 Todd // Jun 17, 2008 at 6:40 pm
Anon: What exactly do you want at 3rd and 3rd? It’s a wasteland now.
8 Red Hook // Jun 17, 2008 at 10:45 pm
I like Whole Foods.