A Brooklyn Whole Foods is Half as Likely
Getty Images
The Whole Foods logo adorns a cardboard box at a Whole Foods Market.
Plans for Brookyln's first Whole Foods are currently in pieces, with the latest setback following the organic supermarket chain's announcement that they are looking for outside developers to help finish the project. In a letter to Councilman Bill de Blasio (D–Park Slope), a company spokesperson said, "We have now concluded that the optimal path for project will be for Whole Foods Market to partner with a developer on the store’s construction".
For those following the increasingly doomed project, it's really nothing new. Just last week, Brooklyn blog Brownstoner reported that it's really never going to happen, based off a source at the State Department of Environmental Conservation. Following that, Curbed straight up said "Gowanus Whole Foods is toast", and wonders if it's just too much for store officials to handle. Curbed notes, "...it could be that the sinking economy combined with the cost of cleaning up and prepping the contaminated site has killed the store."
Construction problems aside, the site is just too darn polluted to build anything on, let alone a high-end organic food market which prides itself on very non-toxic ideals. For now, Brooklyn residents trucking through Manhattan during the week might as well just stop by Union Square for their Whole Foods addiction. That might be the best they're going to get for quite some time.
