Developer: Added Square-Footage Is Slowing Down Whole Foods Opening

Have you wondered what’s holding up the Whole Foods Market opening in Fayetteville?

The building looks finished, and most of the other businesses in the College Marketplace development are open, and yet the Whole Foods opening was pushed from this fall to spring 2016.

Jeff Garrison, a partner at Georgia-based developer S.J. Collins Enterprises, told Whispers that, mid-construction, the retailer decided to add on 5,000 SF to the store by expanding into space previously planned for another tenant.

The change would have pushed the completion date near the holiday season, and Whole Foods typically does not open new stores in November, December and January, he said.

That explanation sounds reasonable. We heard the extra 5,000 SF is for an expanded prepared foods section, news that will likely excite potential customers.

However, we’d be remiss not to mention the Austin, Texas-based retailer’s woes at the corporate level.

In September, it announced 1,500 layoffs, amid a legal battle regarding overpriced, mislabeled food, and later the company’s stock fell about 10 percent in the wake of missed third-quarter earnings expectations and a drop in same-store sales.

Pacing Itself?

The Fayetteville location is part of a growth plan announced in 2014 to open 100 stores in three years, and at least one other opening was recently delayed.

It is another S.J. Collins project, located in Newport News, Virginia, and Garrison said the delay is also due to an increase in size by 5,000 SF.

At the time of publication for our print edition, no date had been set for the Newport News opening. However, S.J. Collins recently announced that the store has set an opening date — for this November.

Also, a local retail expert said some of the area’s other organic foods options, Natural Grocers and Ozark Natural Foods, have not performed as well as expected lately, and that might have prompted Whole Foods’ competitive intelligence team to identify the store as a “hold” or “pause” location.

Many people are looking forward to the retailer’s entrance in the Northwest Arkansas market. Local vendors are hanging their hopes on it.

Whatever the reasons for delays, let’s hope we’ve seen the last of them.