DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES – In early 2011, a Financial District property owner gave tours and had extended conversations with officials from upscale supermarket chain Whole Foods about opening a grocery store in one of its buildings. The site, a commercial mid-rise two blocks from L.A. Live, was slated to get a $20 million renovation.
On the surface, the grocer’s interest made sense. Downtown is the densest employment hub in the region, with some 500,000 workers nearby, according to the Downtown Center Business Improvement District. The area’s 45,518-person strong and growing residential population is highly educated and affluent, with a median household income of $86,300.
Soon after Whole Foods executives visited the site, however, their interest fizzled, said Gilad Lumer, a partner at property owner L&R Group. It is unclear why the Austin, Texas-based grocer did not move forward. Whole Foods does not discuss lease negotiations and no stores are currently in development in the Los Angeles area, said company spokeswoman Kate Lowery.
Lumer doesn’t know why interest cooled, only that it did.
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