Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Whole Foods - Gentrification Comes Belatedly to Chevy Chase


Chevy Chase may get its first Whole Foods, the much-anticipated second "anchor" to the Shops at Wisconsin Place, by the spring of 2010. While the Bethesda-Chevy Chase corridor may seem like a scripted stage setting for the Whole Foods phenomenon, Chevy Chasers have until now had to drive all the way down to Tenley for their organic Gruyere, or eke by (gasp) on Giant or TJ's foodstuffs.

New England Development (NED), Archstone and Boston Properties are jointly developing the Wisconsin Place shopping center at the Chevy Chase-DC border. The entire development took five years to complete. Today, the shopping center features 432, SK&I-designed, upscale apartments, 295,000 s.f. of office space, and 305,000 s.f. of swanky shopping destinations including Cole Haan, White House/Black Market, and Bloomingdales—a.k.a. "Wisconsin Place Anchor Number One."

Turner Construction began working on the shell that would become the new Whole Foods back in August of 2004. Just this past July, Wisconsin Place General Manager, Christine Norris assured DCMud that work on the grocery's escalators had already begun.

Now, four months after that update, construction by L.F. Jennings is underway and Amanda Orr, Communications Rep for NED, told DCMud that Whole Foods is "slated for a spring opening, for sure," but she could offer no more detail because the Whole Foods powers-that-be "made it very clear that they don't want any outside media reps speaking on their behalf."

Unfortunately, when it comes to answering questions about the new store's square footage, its design, and even the estimated Spring 2010 grand opening date posted on the Wisconsin Place web site - Whole Foods PR rep, Katie Hunsberger is only willing to confirm that the store will open sometime in the first half of 2010. And yes, we know River Road has its own, in a bad strip mall.

We got it: What happens in Whole Foods, stays in Whole Foods.

Chevy Chase Real Estate News

7 comments:

MattF on Nov 19, 2009, 8:55:00 AM said...

It's pretty remarkable-- the Whole Foods markets on River Road and in Tenleytown are each about a mile away from the new location. And the locations in Georgetown, Rockville, and Silver Spring are obviously out of range. And still no WF location in downtown Bethesda (where there's already two Safeways, a Giant, and a TJ's, not to mention smaller markets all over the place). Are we over-retailed yet?

Anonymous said...

You gotta be kidding me?!? When are they going to open a store to the EAST of the P St location, which is way overcrowded? If Whole Foods doesn't expand east soon, someone else is going to come in and claim the market for those of us who are tired of driving all the way over to the 1400 block of P St NW.

Anonymous said...

I thought that headline was an Onion article.

Ken on Nov 19, 2009, 6:12:00 PM said...

It was tongue in cheek.

Anonymous said...

Yeah, this is freaking ridiculous. Concur with ANON 10.15, when the hell are they going to build one east of P? If they don't see the potential they are idiots.

Anonymous said...

I live in an area that's fighting ANY grocery chain...or other retail for that matter! East of 14th for sure, how about NE??

Anonymous said...

I think this location actually replaces the one on River Road which is in a nightmare of a parking lot as opposed to being a "new" location

Post a Comment

Commercial ads will be deleted, so don't even think about it.

 

DCmud - The Urban Real Estate Digest of Washington DC Copyright © 2008 Black Brown Pop Template by Ipiet's Blogger Template