Whole Foods: Riverchase site still slated to open this fall

Amazon’s June 16 announcement that it plans to acquire Whole Foods Market in a $13.7 billion deal should not affect the opening of the Whole Foods store in the Riverchase Village shopping center, the Texas-based grocery chain says.

Rachael Dean Wilson, a spokeswoman for Whole Foods’ mid-Atlantic and South regions, said in an email that the Riverchase Village  store is still slated to open this fall and that the company is excited to be a part of Hoover, but she would not give a more specific timeframe.

Even before the merger announcement, Hoover residents were wondering if the Whole Foods store in Riverchase would ever open.

The company first announced it would put its second Birmingham-area store in Riverchase Village in November 2014, but two years and eight months later, the store still hasn’t opened.

Former 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.

Signs in the windows of the store now say it will open this fall.

Riverchase Village for many years was home to a Bruno’s grocery store. Belle Foods took over the Bruno’s store but filed for bankruptcy in mid-2013 — a year after the company was founded.

Whole Foods hired Stewart Perry Construction to gut the Belle Foods store completely, even though it was in the middle of the shopping center. The $2.3 million demolition and construction of a new shell was completed in February 2016 — on time, said Bruce Adams, the project manager for Stewart Perry.

An application for interior construction work was not filed until May 2016, according to building permit records from the city of Hoover. Interior improvements covering 45,883 square feet by Young Contracting were expected to cost $3.4 million, permit records show. A certificate of completion was issued on Dec 28.

David Ashford of Southpace Properties, which handles leasing and management for Riverchase Village, said his company expects Whole Foods to open this fall. But “that’s up to them,” he said. “We certainly hope they open. They’ve been a good tenant with us.”

Whole Foods signed a 20-year-lease on the property, Ashford said.

The prospect of the grocery store also helped lure other tenants to the center, which Ashford said is now 94 percent leased, with only two spaces unclaimed. In conjunction with the Whole Foods construction, the rest of the center also got a new façade, except for PetSmart and Best Buy.

At the corporate level, Whole Foods was a darling of Wall Street for years but more recently has struggled due to increased competition by a growing number of grocers offering natural, organic and healthy foods.

While total sales reached a record $15.7 billion in the 2016 fiscal year that ended in September, Whole Foods reported a decline in same-store sales for 2016 for the first time in many years.

In November, the company announced changes to its leadership structure. One of two co-founders stepped down as co-CEO, and the board announced that its chief financial officer would leave in September 2017 after 29 years as CFO.

A new CFO with business transformation experience was hired earlier than expected in May, and the board of directors, under pressure from its second largest shareholder, added five new independent directors at the same time.

As the company makes changes to improve same-store sales, it has continued to both open and close stores. In fiscal 2016, Whole Foods opened 28 stores, including three relocations. In the first half of fiscal 2017, it closed 11 stores (including one for renovation and one for relocation) and opened 19 stores (includingfour relocations).

The company’s website in early June showed 88 “stores in development,” including the one in Hoover as the only one of those in Alabama. However, Whole Foods also has terminated some leases for “stores in development.”

Hoover City Administrator Allan Rice said the city of Hoover hopes Whole Foods continues with its plan to open in Riverchase. Many residents are eager to see it open, he said. He knows some who drive to the one on U.S. 280 in Mountain Brook because they like Whole Foods so much, he said.

While interior furnishings are still being installed in the Riverchase store, grocery carts are lined up in the lobby awaiting those eager hands to push them through the aisles.