Should Hercules Pursue Whole Foods?

— by Jeffrey Wisniewski — 21 April 2010 — Comments Off

Despite the troubled economy, Whole Foods Market is expanding — quite robustly, too (however plans are only plans). A store opens in Novato this week, and four more stores open in the Bay Area later this year, “including a Mill Valley opening in June and three in the fall, in Santa Rosa, San Jose and San Francisco’s Haight neighborhood.” (See the complete list of stores in development.)

An argument could be made that Hercules isn’t a perfect fit — not yet, of course, until the Waterfront is developed and the city becomes a live-and-work daytime urban setting — but the success of Trader Joe’s in neighboring Pinole is hopefully a harbinger of good things, and Hercules should certainly be pursuing the opportunity (or working to create the opportunity).

Whole Foods would be a perfect tenant for Parcel C (the former Walmart property, now City-owned) — provided the store is developed as New Urbanism, with the store situated near the street and parking behind and/or above. (John Muir Parkway should be a friendly, walkable stroll to and from the Waterfront.) Parcel C has great appeal because of its visibility from the freeway, and a Whole Foods in Hercules would represent the store’s first foray in the market area (the closest one is in Berkeley, or the planned one in Albany).

The City has purchased the vacant lot adjacent to Victoria by the Bay with the purpose of building a large Safeway (or similar), which could — and should — be New Urbanism as well in order to improve the San Pablo Avenue streetscape, but the site’s limited visibility hampered private development. And Fresh & Easy — a smaller, more affordable grocer — will be the anchor tenant for Market Town.

You can suggest a location in the Whole Foods forums but you need to create an account. Maybe the City has.