TAKING A BITE OUT OF WHOLE FOODS That new Whole Foods Market coming to Post Oak Blvd. in the Galleria may not end up being quite the giant originally envisioned, says Nancy Sarnoff: “Developer Ed Wulfe, who’s building the BLVD Place mixed-use project where the Whole Foods will go, recently said the parties are working on amending the lease to reduce the size of the store, originally planned for 80,000 square feet. Put in context, the Kirby Whole Foods is about 40,000 square feet and Central Market is about 75,000 square feet. An 80,000-square-foot store would have been on par with the company’s flagship market in Austin, where customers can eat at mini-restaurants, chose from hundreds of varieties of beer, cheeses and a seafood counter that smokes, slices and fries to order. In a related move, Whole Foods recently announced that it was keeping its store on Woodway and Voss open. The plan was to close it when the Post Oak store opened. [Houston Chronicle; previously in Swamplot]
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Also, work has begun on the one to go up at Dallas and Waugh. Unless something else is going there now, but it was supposed to be a Whole Foods. Anybody know anything about that one?
I don’t think an 80k sq ft store is needed. It shouldn’t be a tourist attraction. Just sell the stuff their customers want to buy. The one at Kirby and W Alabama is plenty good enough and it always packed when I drive by.
It looks packed because the parking lot is miniscule. :-)
Bard, if you go in, you will find it is packed.
kjb, I agree, 80sf is overkill. There are plenty restaurants in the area, they can cut back on those that were planned.
I haven’t driven by in a couple of weeks, but at the Waugh location I saw the same bulldozer digging and refilling the same hole for a couple of months. It is good to hear they are actually doing some work. I will drive by on my way home tonight.
I’ve been in the one on Voss when I used to live out there just to see what it’s all about and then I went into the one on Kirby when I lived by it because they actually had a sail on some fruit. Both times it appeared pretty full inside too. The Voss visit was a mid-week after 5pm trip. The Kirby visit was a Saturday afternoon trip.
This new one will have Rice Epicurean right across the street behind the Four Leaf Towers.
I see the Waugh site a couple days a week. It look like typical site prep work. The signs for commercial center are still there, but nothing denoting Whole Foods. I know it would do good in the area with competition coming from three distant Krogers (Gray, Montrose, and Shepherd) and Randal’s (Midtown).
I have a dislike for Whole Foods. However, I welcome as many as they want to build as large as they can make them if it means there will be fewer people shopping at my soon to be new Kroger on Shepherd.
Galleria area needs some new food choices…..particularly those where you can cobble together a semi-cheap lunch on samples….and perhaps an apple or cup of soup.
Lunch at Rice Epicurean is ridiculously expensive….$7 for a mediocre sandwich????
Those who say that the 80k sq ft store is not necessary have obviously NOT been to the landmark store in DT Austin. If they had, they would be cheering for one just like it here in Houston. I, for one, have been drooling at the thought of it for some time now (they were originally slated to open the Post Oak one in Spring 2009). Pretty please, WF, don’t reduce the size! We want a landmark store too!