Good news for the Denver Union Station neighborhood! According to the Denver Business Journal, Whole Foods will be opening a new 56,000 square foot flagship store at 17th and Wewatta Street. So how is this infill news? If you remember back in June, we announced a new project, 17W, that had an unknown grocery anchor tenant on the ground floor. With the announcement of Whole Foods, this project is coming closer to reality.
As a refresher, here are some preliminary renderings of the project from our announcement post. Developed by Holland Partners, 17W will provide Union Station with 640 apartment units contained in three 13-story buildings which will rise over a retail and parking podium.
According to the article, the Whole Foods is expected to open sometime in 2017 which means we should hopefully see a groundbreaking within the next few months.
Anybody with a square footage-friendly perspective on the world have a rough estimate of how many square feet the Cherry Creek or Capitol Hill locations might be? I’m trying to get a better understanding of how large a store this will be in comparison to those. Thanks!
Cherry Creek is 40k sq feet
Cap Hill is 22k sq ft
Perfect choice for all the rich people who will be living there.
http://uk.businessinsider.com/how-to-find-deals-at-whole-foods-2014-11
I would have to agree – it is the perfect choice for this location! Businesses try and place stores where they will succeed. Looks like a great project, and Holland does outstanding work.
Peter, that is only your opinion – and in my humble opinion your are absolutely wrong in your assessment of Whole Foods pricing. Stephanie is exactly correct – the moniker Whole Paycheck is disappearing rapidly. the moniker was actually meant to be a positive connotation until competitors and media applied the negative spin on it – it means whole foods has such great food you will want to spend all your money on the great food there. I would put Whole Foods’ commodities pricing up against any national retailer. Do your math and shop smart and Whole foods is actually cheaper in most instances. Believe it!
John Mackey?? Is that you??
Based on scaling a google earth image, looks like the Cherry Creek store is around 30,500 SF (including back of house).
Using the same method for the on off Hampden I get 55,500 SF.
I hope that helps
Awesome news. Cherry Creek appears to be 50,000 according to this article from 2001:
http://www.bizjournals.com/denver/stories/2001/10/29/focus2.html?page=all
They are scheduled to break ground in March (right after The Platform opens).
I wish this projected looked better. So cheap and uninspired looking.
If it is made of high-quality ingredients, it will be fine. Good news on WF. Seriously.
R,
Are you serious? Get real and stop leaving stupid comments.
Wazee Resident
Actually a world renowned developer is doing the building. It will be awesome.
LOL…love how we have needed grocery stores downtown for YEARS, how its been the most anticipated type of development that can happen for Denver – and now that we have a Whole Foods on its way there is a commenter stupid enough to say “Perfect choice for all the rich people who will be living there.” Get your head outta your ass, dude.
Before the recession, we looked at Downtown condos and townhouses, but we decided to buy in another part of Denver because of the lack of a grocery store we could walk to. Now, with the King Soopers coming soon just a couple blocks from Whole Foods, the “Missing Link” for urban living is gone, and these food markets will be a huge shot in the arm for Downtown housing. A Trader Joe’s would complete the shopper’s range of choices for price and value, especially among Millennials.
Don’t worry, TJ’s always follows Whole Foods’ location builds. They will move in once Whole Foods is established.
Trader Joe’s would be a nice addition in the heart of downtown. Maybe the Market Station redevelopment on 16th?
Very impressed with Holland’s contribution to Union Station. Hopefully they will do even more projects for our city.
There are only two things that I find disappointing with this project. First, Whole Foods will be taking all of the frontage along the 17th St Linear Gardens. That frontage is just perfect for outdoor seating dining. I think it would be better if WF were half on that block and half on Wewatta. The second thing is that I think it would be better if all three towers did not look exactly the same or that the podium looked exactly the same on all four sides. Elan (19th & Chestnut) did it, so could the developers of this project.
In my opinion the prime restaurant spots for this neighborhood are inside Union Station and the wing buildings. Even though this project is very close by, that space would always play second fiddle to Union Station and the wing buildings.
It would be a tougher spot for a restaurant here. As far as commercial real estate goes, WF is a big national player and no doubt makes far more sense for the owner of this project to lease this out to them. Restaurants have a very high fail rate.
Jeff,
I concede your point that Union Station is a more prestige spot for restaurants. It is a destination location and so those would be the prime spots. However, my point is that the linear gardens, while not the prime spot, are still a very good spot. There will eventually be a lot of foot traffic along that stretch and a restaurant or two (or cafe) would do quite well, especially with the potential for patio seating.
This is not an either or proposition. Roughly 70-75% of the entire ground floor of the 17W project will be retail. That means there will be a restaurant or two somewhere in this building and they would do better along 17th St than along, say, 18th St. I am not opposed to WF in this building. I think it is necessary, but it would also do quite well on whatever street it faced. Because WF is a destination in and of itself.
I am not all that familiar with what spaces are available in that building, but seems like that area is ripe for a Starbucks, given that there is not one in Union Station or Riverfront. They have to be thinking of 1 or more spaces in this area.
I love the additions of grocery stores in urban cores and their surrounding areas. But does no one else find it a bit silly that after having zero grocery stores downtown, Denver will soon have two in the Union Station neighborhood a mere two blocks from each other? The Union Station area will no doubt be rather dense when its build-out is complete and surrounding areas like Riverfront, Prospect Park, Denargo Market, and LoDo will obviously have the best access to these grocery stores. But will demand really be high enough to have two of them right next to each other? Considering the target market, and probable customer, will be those who walk to the store, would it not be more beneficial for one of these grocery giants to locate in an area that doesn’t already have a grocery store? Less competition for the store as well as bringing in a new market that may not have shopped at either of the stores. I mean, even just a few more blocks makes sense. A location in Ballpark, or Arapahoe Square would still be close to dense (and continually densifying) residential areas while supplying one of those neighborhoods with grocery that is not already present. It just seems more logical to me.
That being said, I’m sure both the King Soopers and Whole Foods in the Union Station neighborhood will be top notch and more than welcome. I look forward to their presence and the presence of the new buildings they will reside in!
Tyler, consider Cherry Creek, Whole Foods AND Safeway, what? two blocks from each other? I’m sure that Whole Foods has done the math, possibly considering the fact that some people will work downtown and then shop at either grocery store and, then, get on the train and go home. Quite a good scenario, I think.
Jeffrey, I understand how commonplace it is for competitors of businesses to locate close to one another, particularly grocery stores. This is even more common when the two grocery stores are of slightly different price-points, like the Safeway and Whole Foods in Cherry Creek. I suppose it doesn’t really surprise me that this would also occur in the Union Station area. However, I would still argue that a slightly different downtown location could certainly reduce competition for these grocery retailers. From a customer’s point of view though, I would much rather have them spread out a bit more in the downtown area so that a grocery store would always be conveniently within a few blocks instead of having two of them right next to each other but of a less convenient distance for some.
I am definitely not arguing against grocery in the Union Station neighborhood because I think you are exactly right, people will shop after work and take the train home. I’m just advocating for a grocery store or two in areas that don’t currently have one, where people may not even be taking a train home afterwards.
Tyler, one thing about this website: comments are generally by those who certainly care about our city of Denver! Like you are suggesting, the ballpark area and out on the other side of Broadway, those areas also need grocery stores. Another thing that is missing downtown are mini grocery stores. Some towns have small Whole Foods, for example, and other brands of grocery stores. We need these too, like one more centrally located in Lodo proper. This would serve the pedestrian customer who lives (and possibly works) downtown.
This is actually quite common for like businesses to cluster together. There is immense demand for grocery from not only Lodo, Union Station, CBD, but also Riverfront, Lohi, and pretty much all of Northwest Denver for Whole Foods since there is not one on that side of town.
What’s silly is that it has taken this long.
I agree it is a little odd. Hopefully a City Target will be built with a more centralized location in a few years, along with another grocery store in Uptown or Arapahoe Square. Maybe a Sprouts.
Wasn’t someone building a different grocery store a few blocks north of there? 19th and Chestnut -ish?
You know, to me all these new Denver buildings like this start looking the same. Boxy rectangular shapes, flat roofs, earth tone colors, red brick, and then some hint of modernism with silvers and greys thrown about.
Is anyone else getting bored with this crap?
I was bored with this architecture the moment it started happening. I wish Denver would stop following this boring modern trend and be leaders in a new and interesting form of architecture. Wishful thinking though.
guys, there may be some crap being built around Denver but this is definitely not it. Go to any bigger city, 99% of the buildings are filler and then there are some gems sprinkled about. I think the Union Station area will look great once the fabric is all woven in. For instance, Union Station and the train canopy itself is a gem. The Glasshouse is a standout. The new Confluence Tower will be a standout. Even Davita is a distinctive edifice. This building is a great filler apartment building/grocery store. It will be built to a high standard.
It’s just not realistic to think all new developments will be architecturally significant. Only a very small fraction will be. I’ve lived down here for 3 years. That’s not a long time, but when I moved into the neighborhood, Davita was just being completed, and Union Station and the surrounding area was a deserted area with tumbleweed. That was just over 3 years ago. The transformation is incredible.
As an aside, the revised rendering of this development with the wood or maybe corten steel on the podium looks much better.
…there was a period when 90% of the buildings were nice-looking. Seriously. I refer to the late 19th century / early 20th century.
The tin-roof shack designs used for some industrial buildings — maybe not so nice. But all the wood buildings and all the masonry buildings were decorative, even the *ordinary* ones.
There may be several reasons for this. Part of it was that nearly everything was custom and the builders liked to vary their work. But I think the main one is that builders routinely incorporated curved elements. There seems to be some deep psychological reason why people like curved elements.
http://www.fastcodesign.com/3020075/why-our-brains-love-curvy-architecture
In short, if architects were paying attention, ALL new developments COULD be architecturally *attractive*, if not “significant”. However, the habit of making everything extremely rectilinear and boxy is going to prevent this. People get sick of square boxes, and all the square boxes will be considered eyesores very quickly.
The good news is that they could mostly be fixed with relatively minor facade changes.
Nope!
Yeah. It’s bad architecture and it’s going to date really badly.
The problem is that it’s all much too boxy. Add some curves and people will like it.
So will this have public parking below the store like King Soopers? I assume both will have those escalators designed for shopping carts.