Whole Foods to make Brooklyn debut

Whole Foods will open near the Gowanus Canal, tentatively in late 2012, the high-end grocery said today. Five years after announcing plans to build, the chain will open its site — the first in the borough — at Third Avenue and 3rd Street, according to the Brooklyn Paper. The new store will be about 52,000 square feet, 25 percent smaller than the original proposal, and will include 248 parking space with recharging stations for electric cars. Whole Foods will also build a 20,000-square-foot greenhouse on its roof and grow organic produce on site. The chain also plans to hire close to 300 local employees, with 70 percent of those jobs intended to be full-time positions. The Third Avenue site, which was formerly home to several auto repair shops and
warehouses, has been cleaned and remediated under guidelines
of the New York State Department for Environmental Conservation’s
brownfield program. [Brooklyn Paper]