Colorado Real Estate Journal - December 3, 2014
Whole Foods’ announcement that it will open a store in downtown Denver is huge – literally and figuratively. The flagship, 56,000- square-foot Whole Foods Market Union Station store, the retail anchor in the luxury, 640-unit 17W apartment community to be built at 17th and Wewatta streets, will be one of the biggest Whole Foods in the metro area when it opens in 2017. In fact, it will be as big as, if not slightly bigger than, any Whole Foods in the metro area. It is about the same size as the Whole Foods in Belmar in Lakewood and along Hampden Avenue in Denver, each of which has about 55,000 sf of space. It will be about 10,000 sf larger than the one in Cherry Creek. Whole Foods also is landing in the largest apartment community under construction or on the drawing board in Denver. Vancouver, Washington-based Holland Partner is developing 17W. “Nothing else is on the radar screen that even comes close to approaching it in size,” said Terrance Hunt, an apartment broker with ARA. The missing ingredient for years in downtown has been a full-service grocery store, Hunt and others agree. “Now, we are getting two with the Whole Foods and the King Soopers that is under construction just a couple of blocks away,” Hunt said. “That is great for consumers, who will have more choices, great for the city and great for that Union Station neighborhood,” Hunt said. Landing a downtown grocer, especially a Whole Foods, has long been on the radar screen of city leaders. Tami Door, president and CEO of the Downtown Denver Partnership, said the city has been waiting for a Whole Foods to commit to downtown for years. “This makes a powerful statement that downtown Denver is not only a place to work and visit but a place to live,” Door said. “This is yet another significant asset to support center city residents and create the lifestyle that urban dwellers want,” Door said. “They can walk to work. They can walk to their entertainment choices. And increasingly they can walk to a wide variety of stores.” It’s telling that Whole Foods is planning a full-size store, not a mini, urban version, she said. “That Whole Foods has chosen to locate a store of that size in downtown, sends a message that there are a significant amount of residents living downtown and they think downtown bodes well for future growth,” Door said. The Whole Foods will help downtown land other retailers, she said. She said the presence of Whole Foods will have an “exponential, not an incremental” impact on bringing other retailers and restaurants to downtown. While the Whole Foods was only announced last month, it has been in the works for quite some time. “I believe we first started talking to them in June of last year,” said Peter Petricca, senior development director at the Holland Partner Group. When they first started talking, Whole Food was thinking it wanted a smaller, urban store, he said. The more the Austin-based grocer became familiar with the site, the more it wanted to bring a suburban-sized store to downtown. “My feeling is that they thought this was such a great location that they thought it really made sense to get a maximum-sized store there,” Petricca said. One huge selling point is 17W’s LoDo location by Union Station. “We really feel this location is the bull’s-eye for Denver,” Petricca said. The Wholes Foods not only is great news for downtown, but also will differentiate 17W from the many new rental communities that recently opened, or are under construction or planned, he said. “I think it is going to be a huge amenity for our residents and I do think people will choose to live here because of the Whole Foods,” Petricca said. “I like to say that when it is January and it is 10 below zero and the snow is flying, our tenants can put on their slippers and a bathrobe and enter the Whole Foods through the parking lot, without ever stepping outside,” Petricca said. Whole Foods will have 165 parking spaces devoted to the store. He also agreed with Door that the presence of Whole Foods will draw more retailers to the approximately 15,000 sf of additional ground-floor retail space at 17W, as well as in the immediate area. “I know that the retail broker who represented Whole Foods (Phil Hicks of David Hicks Lampert) is getting a lot of interest from other retailers and restaurants that want to be near Whole Foods,” Petricca said. Hicks did not return a call from CREJ. Heather Larrabee, marketing coordinator for Whole Foods, noted that she lives in downtown, so she is thrilled a new store is coming near Union Station, personally, as well as professionally. “It’s just really cool,” Larrabee said. “Over a number of years, we have met with customer groups and surveyed civic leaders and they all really wanted us to come downtown.” She said the 17W location can’t be beat. “This will be a flagship, or keystone, location for us,” she said. “It’s in a rich, cultural district where there is so much energy and so much going on,” Larrabee said. “That whole LoDo/Union Station area has so much depth, from everything from the Crawford Hotel at Union Station to being able to walk to Coors Field or any of the restaurants and cultural events available downtown,” she said. The growth in the area justifies a big store, she said. “We were talking to Kelly Brough (president and CEO of the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce) and I think she told us there were something like 7,000 new apartments opening up downtown and places like LoHi in the next year or two,” she said. “You also have great access to the highway,” she said. In addition, by the time the store opens there should be a train running between downtown and Denver International Airport. She said the new store, as all new Whole Foods stores, will be extremely energy efficient and sustainable. It will have a Green Globes Certification. Green Globes describes itself as an “efficient and affordable alternative to LEED.” One green step Whole Foods will take will be to buy wind power credits to offset 100 percent of the electricity the store uses. All of its coolers will have glass doors that close, as opposed to open areas for milk, eggs and other products, which are common in many grocery stores. That cuts energy costs by 55 percent, she said. Whole Foods is working with the architectural firm of CHSQA out of Boise, Idaho, on the design of the store. “Davis Partnership, who we hired, designed the overall development and Davis Partnership teamed up with Whole Foods’ architect, which we call ‘Q,’ to design the Whole Foods store,” Petricca said. Whole Foods has no problem competing with a nearby King Soopers. Indeed, it is used to it. “For our perspective, it is something we do day in, day out,” she said. “Competition is good for their business and competition is good for our business,” Larrabee said. Also, Whole Foods offers shoppers choices that can't be found anywhere else, she said. And, in some cases, it doesn’t offer products that are found in other stores. “For example, we do not allow products on our shelves that have artificial coloring,” Larrabee said. It also doesn’t sell foods with trans fats or high-fructose content. What it does do is promote local food producers. Local products it will feature include Justin’s Nut Butter, Noosa Yoghurt, 34 Degrees Crisps, Shakti Chai, Hope Hummus and Spinelli’s. She can’t wait for the Whole Foods to open. “We’re excited to build on the Union Station legacy with this store.”