Whole Foods Market To Open Near VCU Campus

Rows and rows of fresh fruit and vegetables, the perfect place to get an endless supply of organic food. Some whisper that it’s better than Trader Joe’s. A Whole Foods Market has graced West Broad near the Fan district. 

The grocery store known for it’s organic and plant-based food has not revealed when it plans to open. Though, another store in West Broad Village in Henrico County hinted that the store on West Broad is set to open in early 2020, reported by The Richmond-Times Dispatch.  

Whole Foods will be a part of The Sauer Center, a 40-acre mixed-use space that will replace the Pleasants Hardware store. The store was demolished in 2017 to make room for the project. The center will include pedestrian green spaces and a GRTC Pulse Station. 

HG Design Studio is a civil engineering, land planning and landscape architectural firm that is in charge of building The Sauer Center. 

“In this design, there will be outdoor dining under roof provided on two levels along West Broad Street….” reads the description on the HG Design Studio website. “It will still be a state of the art facility incorporating electric charging stations in the parking lot for customer use and solar panels on the building rooftops.”

The grocery chain, Whole Foods, was acquired by Amazon in 2017. To boost grocery sales, the consumer conglomerate installed Amazon lockers in some Whole Food stores. The lockers provide customers who are worried about porch package thefts a more secure way to pick up their Amazon purchases. The company then sends the customer a locker number and a code so they can open the locker to acquire their package. Amazon would use the lockers to entice users to buy an item while they’re at The Whole Foods Market. 

The lockers and the GRTC Pulse station could make the grocery store more accessible and student-friendly for college students at VCU. The lockers could provide students who are wary of packages being taken from their home a safe way to pick up packages and complete returns with Amazon. The bus station inside the center will also allow students easier access to the grocery store and fresh fruits and vegetables. 

This will prove helpful to college students after the closing of the Walmart on Campus store, that occurred in July. With the closing of the Walmart, it will make it more difficult for students to have easy access to food. Making their only other option to walk to Kroger on Broad Street. Whole Foods Market will provide convenient access to fresh fruits and vegetables and can be an alternative to shopping at Kroger. Just a brisk 23-minute walk from Brandt Hall, students can have unlimited access to organic food that they can enjoy.

For those of you who don’t feel like making the walk, the GRTC bus station inside the Sauer Center can make the trip faster, easier and safer. For more information on the development visit the HG Design Studio website on the build. 

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