Whole Foods has signed a lease for a new location near Bryant Park. The high-end grocer and organic food emporium had been in talks to take the space at Blackstone Group’s 1095 Sixth Avenue since at least October.
Whole Foods will take 10,000 square feet on the ground floor of the building and 22,000 square feet on the second floor, people familiar with the deal told the Wall Street Journal. Whole Foods’ largest store in the city is a 77,000-square-foot space on the Bowery. A store in Gowanus also opened this morning.
Top retail brokers told the newspaper that the store’s offerings would be geared more toward prepared foods to cater to the office crowd.
“It’s a different take for them,” said Faith Hope Consolo, chairman of Douglas Elliman’s retail group. “They’ve always plopped themselves in a … mostly residential” area. [WSJ] – Hiten Samtani