Oh, Gowanus Whole Foods, how you keep us at the edge of our seats, poised to post and post and post as the twists and turns of your story reveal themselves. As it turns out, rumors of the project's death were premature! The organic free range pesto chicken dream is not dead. The grocer, however, sent out an email on October 16, a full copy of which was just tossed our way, that says they've decided "the optimal path for this project will be for Whole Foods Market to partner with a developer on the store’s construction, rather than to self-develop the store as originally planned." They say they're "currently in discussions with potential development partners," but don't have specifics on "timetables, development scenarios" and "other specifics." The Brooklyn Paper speculates the company is looking to hire a firm to build the structure and then to become a tenant. The finding a husband and/or wife or stud angle also raises the interesting question of whether the grocer intends to abandon the idea of building most of the store underground (thereby making it intensely more expensive to construct) and to go through the zoning process to put up a bigger building above ground that might include residential or commercial space.
[Click to enlarge and read]
Or if you prefer, here's the full text of the Whole Foods Breeding Partner Memo:
As you may know, Whole Foods Market has been working in recent months to re-evaluate our proposed plans for a new store on our property at 3rd Street and 3rd Avenue in Brooklyn. As a result of these efforts, we have now concluded that the optimal path for this project will be for Whole Foods Market to partner with a developer on the store’s construction, rather than to self-develop the store as originally planned.
We wanted to make you aware of this change of direction and to assure you that we remain wholly committed to bringing a Whole Foods Market to Brooklyn. We are currently in discussions with potential development partners, so as I am sure you can understand, we are not yet in a position to be able to share information regarding timetables, development scenarios or other specifics. However, we will be back in touch as soon as we are able to provide additional details about our plans.
· Whole Foods Can't Do It Alone in Gowanus [Brownstoner]
· Whole Foods needs a partner on Gowanus job [Brooklyn Paper]For more stories from Curbed, go to curbed.com.
