Whole Foods Market delays opening of Riverchase store until Oct. 18

Whole Foods Market today announced the opening of its new store in Riverchase will occur on Oct. 18.

The company had not publicly announced an opening date other than "fall 2017," but the store had been slated to open today, according to a Hoover city official and a company that does business with Whole Foods. Now, the opening is scheduled to take place in three weeks instead.

Rachael Dean Wilson, a spokeswoman for the company’s mid-Atlantic and South regions, would not give any specific reasons for the delay but said there are a number of things that can happen in the development process to cause delays.

That shopping center, at the southeast corner of U.S. 31 and Lorna Road, has flooded several times this year during heavy rains, causing some stores to close for days at a time to allow for cleanup, restoration and sanitation. But Wilson would not comment further about the delay.

“We’re just excited to be opening on Oct. 18,” she said.

The Texas-based grocery chain first announced in November 2014 that it would put its second Birmingham-area store in Riverchase Village in the spot that for many years was home to a Bruno’s grocery store and later Belle Foods before Belle filed for bankruptcy in mid-2013.

Hoover Mayor Gary Ivey said in his December 2015 state-of-the-city speech that the store was expected to open in the mid-summer to fall of 2016, but those expectations were not met.

A $2.3 million job to demolish the Belle Foods store and construct a new shell was completed on time in February 2016, but an application for $3.4 million worth of interior construction work was not filed with the city until May 2016. Hoover issued a certificate of completion for interior improvements on Dec. 28.

David Ashford of Southpace Properties, which handles leasing for the shopping center, said Whole Foods signed a 20-year lease. The shopping center has been renamed Whole Foods Market Plaza.

Amazon announced on June 16 that it planned to acquire Whole Foods in a $13.7 billion deal.

Whole Foods Market plans to donate five percent of opening day sales for its Hoover store to REV Birmingham’s Urban Food Project, which aims to improve people’s access to healthy food.

The store also will offer an array of product demonstrations and samples to opening-day shoppers and give free gift cards ranging from $5 to $50 to the first 500 customers, plus one $500 gift card, the company said in a news release.

Whole Foods Market also is inviting the community to a block party in front of the new store on Sunday, Oct. 15, from 1 to 4 p.m. The party is scheduled to include music, activities for kids, food and product samples. Admission is free.

Jason Stonicher, the Riverchase store’s team leader, said in a news release that the store at 3780 Riverchase Village will feature many locally-sourced and seasonal products. Every item sold in the store will be free of artificial flavors, colors, sweeteners, preservatives and hydrogenated fats, the company said.

The 40,000-square-foot Whole Foods Market will include a Revelator coffee bar, Hops N Sauce beer and barbecue venue, grab-and-go barbecue bowls and gourmet soul food offerings such as buttermilk-smothered pork chops, fried catfish, maple roasted yams and burn end black-eyed peas.

Other specialties made in-house will include scratch-made Lane cake, a selection of meatballs, ready-to-cook breaded shrimp and hand-tossed, wood-fired pizzas. The store also will have a do-it-yourself beauty apothecary that allows customers to create their own beauty care regiments with ingredients such as lavender and shea butter in bulk.

The store plans to employ 120 people and is still hiring, Wilson said. People can apply for jobs at wholefoodsmarket.com/careers. Open positions for the Hoover store should be on the website by Wednesday, Sept. 27, Wilson said.

This story was updated at 1:37 p.m. to clarify that, prior to today, Whole Foods Market had not publicly announced an opening date other than "fall 2017." Information about the Sept. 26 target date came from a Hoover city official and a company that does business with Whole Foods.