Crain's New York
August 05. 2008 4:52PM
Whole Foods to open first Upper East Side location
The store on East 57th Street and Second Avenue will serve Tudor City and the Upper East Side.
Adrianne Pasquarelli
Upper East Siders will finally get to shop at Whole Foods without heading across town. The organic grocer just signed a lease for its first East Side location at 250 E. 57th St., on Second Avenue, in a building currently under development by the World-Wide Group, the developer’s publicists said. The three-floor space, to be located above the High School of Art and Design and P.S. 59, will be 47,000 square feet. Construction is expected to be completed by 2012.
This will be the supermarket chain’s eighth New York City location, and will make the Big Apple home to the largest cluster of Whole Food stores. Chicago comes in at a close second with six locations.
While Midtown East residents rejoice—the nearest Whole Foods location is at Columbus Circle—industry insiders say the addition will benefit a neighborhood bereft of many supermarket options.
“That would be a great access point for a lot of East Side residents to take advantage of,” said David LaPierre, a senior vice president at CB Richard Ellis Inc. who is not connected to the deal. “It would be a great divide to hit that Tudor City crowd to the south and the Upper East Side residents to the north.”
He added that Manhattan could most likely support two more Whole Foods stores.
Whole Foods has traditionally been very popular with New Yorkers since its 2001 arrival, and the new store is expected to continue this trend.
“Historically, markets in New York City have either been bodegas or the homegrown supermarkets like D’Agostino’s and Gristede’s, which are much smaller,” said Andrew Moger, chief executive of BCD, a restaurant and retail development firm. “Whole Foods did not particularly dial down their store prototype when they came here, so it stands out.”