COMMENT OF THE DAY: MORE THAN YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE NEW MONTROSE WHOLE FOODS 
“The following was from the North Montrose civic association meeting November:
1) The reason the back-end of the store is facing Dallas and the side is facing Waugh is because of the AIG building. They (AIG building owner) required that the store be placed as far away from the building as possible. This meant that the parking lot had to sit between the AIG building and the store pushing the back to Dallas (unfortunately).
2) The loading entrance will be on Dallas and will exit onto Waugh. This means the trucks will not have to cross any traffic to get to the loading docks.
3) The trucks will be loading sometime in the early morning and should be finished by 8:00 AM. There will be nice large wooden doors to conceal the entrance and exit to the loading dock during the day when there is no loading.
4) The corner of the store on Waugh closest to D’amico will contain an outdoor/indoor style cafe with garage-type doors that open in good weather. The renderings of the store show a patio with umbrellas. They expect to have bands, etc playing there.
5) The store will be very pedestrian friendly with all traffic entering from the BACK of the parking lot (close to D’amico). They say they learned from the Kirby store that allowing cars to enter by the store entrance is a nightmare for traffic.
6) There will be bike racks with some 50 or available slots. There will be a free tire filling station. The focus here is to really drive bike traffic (and pedestrians as noted in #5).
7) There will be many skylights on the roof allowing a bunch of natural lighting.
8) There will be many large trees that should grow to provide good shade in time (not just those short trees).
9) No comment on an apartment building going up next to it BUT.. look at the roundabout driveway. Obviously not built just for a grocery store.
10) They will recycle their own rainwater and use it in sprinkler system.
11) I think 250 parking spots. Kirby store has 150. Kirby store is 35,000 sq ft and this one slightly larger at 40,000.
12) No real details on the inside of the store. They expect it to fit in very well with the diversity of Montrose. They are reaching out to local artists to put local art in the store (and around it). I can’t remember exactly the email to submit. Maybe montrose.artist@wholefoods.com?? If you are and artist and want to submit your stuff give it a whirl.
13) They expect to open in the spring. Shooting for March if no big weather delays.
14) Store hours aren’t set. Expected to be 7:00AM to 10? (if i remember correctly).
15) They are very excited as were the people in the meeting. They say Houston is the #2 market for them (they have 300 stores i think). Every store is built for the specific location (sugarland way different of course than Montrose).
16) They think there will be a bank at the corner of D’amico and Waugh in that section of the parking lot (which is what we really need right????)
17) They are hoping to relieve some of the high traffic they get at kirby store as it is a nightmare.”
[shannosa, commenting on Austin Powers the New North Montrose Whole Foods] Rendering: Stone Soup 6 Architecture
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ME LOVE ROCKS….. YUMMY YUMMY WEEEEEEEE
This may be nit picking I know, but what will the trucks be loading early in the morning? Is this to be a distribution center as well?
Pye, I would wager the trucks will be UNloading rather than taking in goods. Early morning is when fresh produce and bakery goods are delivered to grocery stores from the produce depots and commercial bakeries.
Sounds good to me. Hurry up and open!
Love the part in comment #15 about ‘every store is built for the specific location’… What a crock. All they did was take a suburban prototype and turn it around so that the rear of the store and loading docks face the street. This strikes me as bad urban design.
Otherwise, what is different about the form and appearance of this store that makes it fit the neighborhood? Different color stick on stone? Local ‘Art’?
This strikes me as more corporate BS in the line of the false choice presented by HEB between the ‘Wave’, ‘Sawtooth’ and the ‘Pavilion’ Hmmm, but come to think of it, I guess HEB already established the precedent that a Montrose grocery store should show its A$$ to the street. Montrose gets jobbed, again!
Why should AIG get any choice about anything? They need to crawl back under a rock
I think it was part of AIG’s original agreement with the land owner or something like that.
In the other thread on this, someone said the property was originally part of the American General campus.
“Very pedestrian friendly” and having to walk all the way around a 40,000 ft^2 building to get to the door from the street are incompatible concepts. Unless they mean it’s “very pedestrian friendly” to people walking from their cars.
I live right off of Dallas (about two blocks from the location) and went to the North Montrose Civic meeting when Whole Foods showed up and gave there speech. I am actually very pleased that the front of the store is not facing Dallas and the main entrance is facing towards Allen Parkway. This relieved some of my traffic fears for Dallas. Yes people will still use Dallas to enter from the back of the store, but most people will be turning off of Waugh and use D’Amico St to enter the store.
Yes it might be a lot of corporate crap that they change the store to fit every location, but I do believe they tweak certain aspects for the area. Mies – how many Whole Foods have you been too. I have been to about a dozen in different states and they all are slightly different. Some have kid rooms, some huge wine areas, some huge beer caves, some huge prepared food sections, etc. So yes they will have the same stuff as other Whole Foods but this one will have outdoor dining and more bike racks than the Kirby location, as for the inside I see it being pretty much the same.
Being a resident of the area, I am pretty pleased with how they are handling the community relations and can’t wait till they open.
This is what I seem to remember.
I believe it was previous occupied by a family owned Cafeteria, for decades. American General (later became AIG), bought the property from the family (maybe it was called Albright’s Cafeteria). The building was leveled years ago, enlarging their campus.
Albritton’s Cafeteria was the name of that place. They used to have several around town.
It is clear that the traffic on Waugh/Heights is bad enough. This Whole Foods will destroy the neighborhood with the additional cars. We should demand traffic studies.
I am a Houston artist and would like to know who to get in touch with about submitting my art.
713.240.4221
Nice to see you TAM, was at the same meeting. I’ll stop by and introduce myself next time, I’m there from Alden place/North Montrose.
From a HAIF member: I heard today from the WF Kirby employees that the opening of the Montrose store is set for June 22nd. Some of them will be moving to the new store and I asked if they knew when it was opening and the guy said “June 22, it just got pushed back by two weeks.”
http://www.houstonarchitecture.com/haif/topic/15077-marvys-new-acquisition-west-dallas-whole-foods/page__pid__383924__st__150#entry383924