It's surprised me how slowly this thing has moved. Grocery stores in general seem to take a long time considering how simple the structure is. I don't really understand why they take so long in comparison to a Lowes, for example. It's the same concept, a big box structure (slab and a grid holding up the roof...that's it. Everything else is decorative and we're not even to that part yet.

As bluedogok mentioned a lot of it is the refrigeration and utilities that have to be placed under the building. When we rebuilt the Country Boy on Highway 9 close to two months of the rebuild process was strictly pouring flooring/placing pipes/wires/etc under the concrete. And when you think that the wiring has to have an electrician, the plumbing a plumber, the gas lines/refrigeration the HVAC guy, and on and on and they all have to work with each other it can take a long long time.

Also, keep in mind that about a third of the WF space will be for prepared food, which means they are essentially installing mini restaurants throughout.

Where did you get that 1/3 number? It sounds right considering all the seating area they are making.

Just based on similar-sized stores I've seen here in California.

As bluedogok mentioned a lot of it is the refrigeration and utilities that have to be placed under the building. When we rebuilt the Country Boy on Highway 9 close to two months of the rebuild process was strictly pouring flooring/placing pipes/wires/etc under the concrete. And when you think that the wiring has to have an electrician, the plumbing a plumber, the gas lines/refrigeration the HVAC guy, and on and on and they all have to work with each other it can take a long long time.
We are doing Navisworks coordination on a museum grade $38 million home under construction in the hills above Lake Austin and just below Michael Dell's house. The entire basement is filled with HVAC, plumbing and electrical panels and it is amazing how tight everything is down there for a 16,000 sf house. It has been a full time coordination job for one of the guys in our office.

I had a surprise come over me the other day. The last time my family of four ate at Whole Foods (in Little Rock), we spent $30...not terrible, but not great considering it was 4 things of soup, some cornbread, a panini, and two teas.

Surprise surprise, we go to Panera the other day and get a salad and tea, a pick 2 with water, and a cookie....$30. WOW. Suddenly Whole Foods price for the other meal doesn't seem that bad considering how much better it was. AND it makes me think Panera needs to come back down to reality on what their prices should be.

I can't wait for this place to open!!!!!

We need to find some new pictures of the place. I wonder how hard it would be to walk up to the glass and take interior shots.

The outside of this building looks pretty much complete.

There is a whole bunch of underfloor utilities involved in grocery type retail, when Walgreens doubled the amount of packaged reach-in coolers at the NW 23rd & May store we had to saw cut the just poured slabs to put in the power and drains to serve those coolers. All of the produce, deli and meat areas have power, water and sanitary sewer, the hot areas have the same requirements. The cooler/freezer areas have power and drains, in many cases the compressors are outside so you have the lines coming from/going to those remote compressors. A Lowe's has relatively minimal utilities throughout the store and most of those are served in warehouse type stores via overhead service.

Thanks blue, saved me the trouble.

Found some photos on the 'net that are recent and provide much more detail than you can see on the webcam.

On the last picture with the retractable door, you can see there are ceiling fans inside that small enclosed space and also at least some of the windows can open, which all furthers the theory this will be a semi-enclosed eating area. I'm sure the area around it will be a patio with umbrellas.

http://www.okctalk.com/images/pete/wholefoods71911a.jpg

http://www.okctalk.com/images/pete/wholefoods71911b.jpg

http://www.okctalk.com/images/pete/wholefoods71911c.jpg

Wow. Those photos raise way more questions then they answer. What is up with the garage door? Do those brown things over the main door spin?

The louvers over the entrance do seem to pivot and allow them to angle them to block sun depending on the time of year.

That overhead door is probably just so they can close it on lousy days and open it when nice. They may also use it to bring in some furniture and lock it up overnight.

I'm going to have to contain myself...getting antsy on this thing!!!

I'm going to have to contain myself...getting antsy on this thing!!!

Sounds like you have money burning a hole in your pocket then. LOL

Well you think Whole Foods and you think $$$. Mostly that's true, but you can't get some of the brands of things anywhere else in town. They have Tiger Brand sauces for Indian food...mmmm. I've yet to find that one anywhere. We found buckwheat pancakce mix there (ugh...not for me, for the grandma-in-law). They have some really good food to eat there in the store, etc.

Coming down to reality though, it's as much for having everything in 1 place as having the prodcut in town. You can get a LOT of the stuff other places already, but you have to go to several stores to get them. This way they'll all be in one place. And actually, quite often I've found that it's a hair cheaper at whole foods because of the economies of scale they have in comparison to the mom and pop places around town.

This thing isn't ever going to replace the Forward Foods or Native Roots of OKC. But it does serve as an option to those of us that enjoy some of the brands. Now you won't find me buying everything there...heck I buy a good amount of my stuff at Aldi folks. Where else can you get a 10 pound bag of russet potatos for $2 for example....it's just potatos, why should I pay more even at Crest?

Bomber, I'm a big a WF as anybody, but you can get buckwheat pancake mix anywhere. Try the one at the OSU OKC Farmers market, it's delish, and healthy too.

Bombermwc: Would think that the various Indian markets in the metro would carry it? Have you checked the Indian Spice place there at N. Portland & 39th Expressway (Portland Plaza)...the place that bought the Route 66 bowling alley? Never been inside it so don't know what they carry...

Is that stone?? It looks really nice.

yes yes, i said that already. it's not that they neccessarily have something that isn't available other places...but that it's all under one roof. So I can make one one trip to the store to get all the specialty stuff rather than going to one place for indian, one place for veggies, one place for cheese, etc.

Is that stone?? It looks really nice.

Yes. It's one of the nicest Whole Foods' exteriors I have seen. And you know Aubrey will go all out on the landscaping.

Here are a couple more photos that show the stonework better. I believe it goes all along the back (north) side as well, and the entire rear dock area is actually a tunnel to shield trucks and debris from any angle:

http://www.okctalk.com/images/pete/wholefoodsstone1.jpg

http://www.okctalk.com/images/pete/wholefoodsstone2.jpg

read-a-disgruntled-whole-foods-employees-epic-resignation-letter (http://gawker.com/5824287/read-a-disgruntled-whole-foods-employees-epic-resignation-letter)

Disgruntled employees always make the best reading when they put together letters like that. Chances are the guy feels better after being able to vent it out though. I'm sure we all have our issues with our job. I'm a bit confused why anyone would think that Whole Foods would be really that different from any other corporate grocer out there though.

He brought up some points that would be worth asking about though, mainly with purchasing. I've been told that Whole Foods owns up to 90% of the brands they sell, or at least own some part of that company, so it helps to bring the cost down (not that we see it on the sticker price). That seems a bit of a stretch when you look at the brands in the store so I'm curious if anyone knows any more detail on that.

And more into purchasing, he says they don't analyze sales for purchasing purposes? Now that would really surprise me if corporate isn't data mining their products to know what is hot and what is not. The bottom line in the grocery industry is so small, pennies can be the deciding factor in what happens. If their sales system really is as old as he says (i'm betting that store just needs to get some new hardware if it's been around a while), it could be possible that they can't track properly. I worked at K-Mart back in college and their inventory system was laughable as well. You got the illusion that when you ordered something, your order was being matched with sales, but it only got denied if the product was no longer being sold at all. Countless times more than one employee would place an order for the same thing and you end up with a pallet full of something and no where to put it.

I don't think they own the bulk of the brands they sell, just like Wal-Mart doesn't. I see many of the same brands of items in Central Market, Sunflower, Sprouts, Sun Harvest and even in the "finer foods" section of Spec's liquor store.

They have hired people from Wal-Mart and HEB to develop their purchasing systems, I would think it resemble Wal-Mart much more than it does anyone else.

Sounds like the guy was fired judging from his rant. Whole Foods is a corporation just like any other, they all have some inane policies sent down from above, even our "mid-sized" architectural firm has a bunch of them sent down from Indianapolis, she thinks she is running a large multi-national with the policies, not 35 in in Indy and 9 in Austin and 3 in San Antonio. We didn't seem to have that much bureaucracy at Benham and we were around 800 employees worldwide before the Atkins buyout.

Sounds like the person needed to work at mom-n-pop store or a co-op if they wanted the warm fuzzies.

Whole Foods' CEO will be on CNBC at 2:15 CDT today. They announced this week that they'll be opening a store in Detroit which has NO national grocery chains. They'll receive $5 million in government subsidies & incentives, including $6/sf rent. Local grocers (and I'm sure many taxpayers) are understandably upset that a business is being paid to open shop. Sound like anything we've been through here before, like with Bass Pro?

Um, yes but who in Detroit is going to be able to afford to items in a WF? Are they aware that 3 out of 4 homes are abandoned and that the population is a flicker of what it once was? Detroit proper is barely surviving.

Um, yes but who in Detroit is going to be able to afford to items in a WF? Are they aware that 3 out of 4 homes are abandoned and that the population is a flicker of what it once was? Detroit proper is barely surviving.

I've read that Detroit is on the upswing. The big 3 have been hiring and the auto industry is the healthiest its been in years. And I didn't see the story, but "opening in Detroit" could mean "opening in one of the many super-rich suburbs." There are a number of VERY wealthy suburbs around Detroit.

The store, in fact, will be in midtown Detroit, at John R and Mack, near the Detroit Medical Center. It's not an impoverished section of the Motor City, exactly, but it's not in a super-rich suburb either.

Although this deserves note: it's only 20,000 square feet.

http://wholefoodsmarket.com/stores/midtown/

The DMC isn't in an impoverished area???? Since when? 90% of the patients there are uninsured and were that way long before the economic downfall. The homeless walk-in rate there is astounding. The employees there don't leave campus because of the state of the neighborhood (it's much like St. Anthony used to be here before all the changes). Gunshot wounds are the norm there. I'm speaking from experience with connections there rather than spouting opinion from half a country away.

Michigan healthcare in general is having a hard time, so it's not just the DMC, but they are definitely an example of the hard times. Yet another reason I'm quite confused by this being the location.

That being said, if it's near the hospital, and such a small store....they could be looking to work right off the DMC staff then. In that case, it's totally viable. Last time i was in a WF in Little Rock, a doctor from Children's Hospital stopped to talk to me and my wife when he saw our boys. Turns out, he has 8 of his own. Apparently when you are a doctor, you can afford to feed 8 kids from WF. His cart was overflowing and I know it had to be pushing the 3-$400 mark with what he had.

Now, when is this baby supposed to open?

Oct./Nov.

Thanks!

Well darn, the paper had reported they were running ahead of schedule and might complete in September a month or so ago. Guess they have fallen back a bit.

Yes, the original announced opening date was December but a month ago the WF people said it could be open as early as September.

They are already taking job applications "thru August 26th":

http://www.careerbuilder.com/JobSeeker/Jobs/JobDetails.aspx?job_did=J3I3VT68C2Q2RNC8T1L

Lot's of trees and landscaping going in today.

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6063/6027154496_9973293933_b.jpg

From P Bar Farms in Hydro.

Awesome, so aliens have sold out to advertising now instead of just doing crop circles.

Awesome, so aliens have sold out to advertising now instead of just doing crop circles.
If you'd look closer, our notice they already do a crop maze, big deal they decided to sell out the design and hopefully make a profit in a drought season

Woooooosh!

Snapped some pictures with my iphone this morning. Now let's see if I can remember how to do this.

Northwest of Grocery, front of building.
http://i884.photobucket.com/albums/ac42/walkup5595/whole%20foods%202011/Wholefoods2011014.jpg[/IMG]
Northwest of Grocery, front of building.
http://i884.photobucket.com/albums/ac42/walkup5595/whole%20foods%202011/Wholefoods2011013.jpg[/IMG]
Northwest of Grocery, back of building.
http://i884.photobucket.com/albums/ac42/walkup5595/whole%20foods%202011/Wholefoods2011005.jpg[/IMG]
Northwest of Grocery, back of building.
http://i884.photobucket.com/albums/ac42/walkup5595/whole%20foods%202011/Wholefoods2011006.jpg[/IMG]
Northwest of Grocery, front of building.
http://i884.photobucket.com/albums/ac42/walkup5595/whole%20foods%202011/Wholefoods2011012.jpg[/IMG]
Southeast side Grocery.
http://i884.photobucket.com/albums/ac42/walkup5595/whole%20foods%202011/Wholefoods2011011.jpg[/IMG]
Grocery cafe.
http://i884.photobucket.com/albums/ac42/walkup5595/whole%20foods%202011/Wholefoods2011009.jpg[/IMG]
Cafe patio.
http://i884.photobucket.com/albums/ac42/walkup5595/whole%20foods%202011/Wholefoods2011010.jpg[/IMG]
Northeast side Grocery.
http://i884.photobucket.com/albums/ac42/walkup5595/whole%20foods%202011/Wholefoods2011008.jpg[/IMG]
Northwest side Grocery
http://i884.photobucket.com/albums/ac42/walkup5595/whole%20foods%202011/Wholefoods2011007.jpg[/IMG]

Great pics!

Another nicely disguised tin shed peice of architecture thats so common around these here parts.

Maybe it's due to being in tornado Alley? Build it fast and cheap, nothing lasts around tornado alley for long.

But this is the better of most efforts.

There really isn't anything "cheap" about this building. Pretty much every building is built in a similar fashion no matter how much it costs, steel structure with veneer attached, I have done that type of building all over the world in Japan, China, Ireland, Mexico and all over the US. You can go as cheap or as expensive as you wish on that type of building, I guess they could have done painted concrete tilt-wall building which is the predominate method here in Austin (and Houston) for low rise commercial buildings of any size. The days of building a brick double-wythe exterior wall building are long gone.

I think he meant to say expensive.

I don't think they went with this construction technique for the fast element of it either. They have been working on it over a year.




when you were taking the photos did you peak in any of the windows?

That's the most expensive stonework I've ever seen on a grocery store! Looks really, really nice.

They've had the added challenge of having to make it look good from all four sides and have done a nice job.

To clarify, the orange building is Anthroplogie

I agree. That's one of the most expensive exteriors on a grocery store I've ever seen. The landscaping is pretty impressive too. I suspect Anthro will look great when co
pleted too.

Too many workers around and I didn't have a hard hat. In that situation discretion is better than chancing confrontation.

Thanks for the photos workman.

Are you just speculating with the "Grocery Cafe" label or did you see something that led you to believe that little structure will be a cafe?

Just speculation.

I have to agree it does look alot more impressive in person. The rock and masonry work is very nice and does look expensive. In the photos it looked like the type of tin metal buidling walmart utilizes...thank goodness it really isn't.

I do think the term veneer gets misunderstood and misused as a "positive" element (especially in furniture commercials).

(və-nîr')
1. A thin surface layer, as of finely grained wood, glued to a base of inferior material.
2. Any of the thin layers glued together to make plywood.
3. A decorative facing, as of brick.
4. A deceptive, superficial show; a façade: a veneer of friendliness.

tr.v., -neered, -neer·ing, -neers.

1. To overlay (a surface) with a thin layer of a fine or decorative material.
2. To glue together (layers of wood) to make plywood.
3. To conceal, as something common or crude, with a deceptively attractive outward show.

Actually, I was told veneers are frequently used in expensive furniture construction. It's only when it's concealing plywood or MDF that it can be a problem. And "solid wood" doesn't necessarily indicate quality, as pine is a solid wood. Solid oak furniture is frequently sturdy but unattractive or pedestrian. Now, back to topic. The Anthropologie store will look great once it's done, I can pretty much guarantee you. They have such great interiors and windows. With those big windows it will be fun to go by and see what their current decorating theme is. They have a Visual Manager for every store, who is told the company's theme, but gets to interpret it. They work very hard on their interiors as well, and since they get new merchandise almost every day, it's always fun to see how that new merchandise is displayed.

I work as a designer for a VERY high-end furniture manufacturer in town. They are varying reasons as to why veneers are used in high-end furniture and usually not for deceptive reasons. There are different types of veneers. While the cheaper Ikea-type veneers are trying to mimic the qualities of certain wood, the high-end veneers are usually that particular wood itself. Some exotic woods may not be available in the desired dimensions or it's characteristics may not lend themselves to certain design features. All woods shrink and swell, some more than others for example. There may also be weight considerations for furniture that may be on boats, rv's planes, etc. The application of veneers on high-end furniture is quite involved and can cost more than one might think. The other stuff is quite awful, but you often get what you pay for.

The critical poster was just trying to appear knowledgable by by taking a shot at the building. In fact, it is going to be a great addition to the neighborhood, and the best looking and highest quality HF store I have seen. Chesapeake is developing a first class shopping area for OKC...the best in the city by far.

The critical poster was just trying to appear knowledgable by by taking a shot at the building. In fact, it is going to be a great addition to the neighborhood, and the best looking and highest quality HF store I have seen. Chesapeake is developing a first class shopping area for OKC...the best in the city by far.

I agree with this statement. The 2-3 WF I have seen here are not as good looking as this one appears to be.

For sure, you find me a grocery store in town that isn't just conrete...then come back and complain about WF....ha.

Even the ugliest WF store I've been in (Little Rock) is still a nice place compared to a typical grocery store. And this one by far seems to be taking the cake on the fancy factor.

Bomber, I agree, but you need to visit the Parlane ovation in Dallas or the flagship store in Chicago!

Guess who pays for that upscale architecture at the check out?

Bomber, I agree, but you need to visit the Parlane ovation in Dallas or the flagship store in Chicago!
What are you typing on?

iPad 2, gotta love iOS predictive text! I meant to say ParkLane flagship location in Dallas.

In today's paper there's a story about Costco saying they'd move here if we allowed wine in grocery stores... In that same article there's an interview with the Whole Foods people and they mention their new Classen Curve store was not designed to accommodate wine and if it were made legal they'd have to do some rearranging of the store isles. This just struck me as odd and somewhat short sighted.

Hoping for a silver lining... If it does get legalized though and the result is that WF has to further decrease their space for food to accommodate wine, maybe that'll hasten the building of more stores in the metro.