In July, the Howard Hughes Corporation began selling condos in Ae’o, one of five residential towers that the developer is building within its 60-acre master planned Ward Village on the Hawaiian island of Oahu.
When it’s completed sometime in 2018, the Bohlin Cywinski Jackson-designed Ae’o will have 466 residences that range from 409 to 1,331 sf and start in the low $400s. At the base of that tower will be a 50,000-sf Whole Foods Market.
Supermarkets have always been sought-after—and, some would argue, essential—tenants for mixed-use projects, especially for those in urban areas where grocery stores have become harder to come by.
In Boston, Millennium Tower at Downtown Crossing, a 60-story luxury high rise with 442 units, is scheduled to open in the summer of 2016 next to a new 37,000-sf Roche Bros. gourmet supermarket. In Newark, N.J., a former 440,000-sf Hahne Department Store is currently under reconstruction by L+M Development and Hanini Group as a building with 160 mixed-income apartments and a 29,000-sf Whole Foods on the ground floor. And Extell Development has promised the community to include an affordable supermarket as part of the retail component of its Two Bridges tower project in Manhattan, which is being built on land where a Pathmark supermarket was closed to make way for the residential buildings. Lend Lease is the construction manager on this project.
Whole Foods within Eighth & Grand in Los Angeles, image courtesy Carmel Partners
Carmel Partners’ Eighth & Grand, a 700-unit mixed-use community designed by Commune, is currently preleasing and should open later this year. The ground floor of this three-acre site features the first Whole Foods Market to open in downtown Los Angeles. And in Dallas’s Uptown neighborhood, Gables Residential has had a waiting list since September 2014 for the 222 apartments and 17 townhomes in its eight-story Gables McKinney Avenue building, which sits atop a Whole Foods that opened on August 12. The urbanized supermarket includes a coffee and smoothie bar, a café, and a taproom with 24 taps for beer, wine, and cold-brew coffee.
Whole Foods Market, with 408 stores in the U.S., has operated in Hawaii for seven years and currently has four stores in the state. The Oahu location will be the retail supermarket’s first on that island and its flagship in Honolulu.
“Our focus is to bring in the best retailers for the daily needs” of residents and the local community, says Nick Vanderboom, Senior Vice President of Development at Ward Village. One of the other towers that Hughes is planning for Ward Village—988 Halekauwila, with 424 for-sale units, which opens in 2019—will include a 23,000-sf full-service Long’s Drugs at street level.
Ward Village on Oahu is designed to be Hawaii’s first LEED Platinum ND-certified development. Vanderboom acknowledges that the decision to include a supermarket in a residential tower “always complicates the design.” Sanitation and logistical issues must be addressed. As for parking, Hughes decided to put the lot for the supermarket and other retail within the tower above the stores, and have a separate area for resident parking.
This is a combination that Hughes likes elsewhere, too. Vanderboom says the developer has two stateside mixed-used projects that include Whole Foods: in Columbia, Md., a $25 million adaptive reuse of the 89,000-sf Rouse Company’s headquarters; and new construction in The Woodlands in Houston, where the supermarket will be next to the apartment tower and other retail.
Whole Foods at the base of the Gables McKinney Avenue building in Dallas, image courtesy Gables Residential
Related Stories
Retail Centers | Sep 20, 2018
BIG designs ‘restaurant village’ just outside of Copenhagen
The restaurant comprises 11 spaces, each with their own unique function.
Retail Centers | Sep 17, 2018
Iteration vs disruption: Designing for a great customer experience
One way to solve for the future is to disrupt the expected.
Mixed-Use | Sep 14, 2018
Six-story structure combines a parking garage with street-level retail
Eskew+Dumez+Ripple designed the structure.
Building Tech | Sep 6, 2018
19 decommissioned shipping containers become downtown Phoenix’s hottest marketplace
September 1 marked the opening of downtown Phoenix’s newest restaurant and retail marketplace—and its latest commercial construction project to utilize decommissioned shipping containers as its primarily building form.
Retail Centers | Sep 4, 2018
Heatherwick-designed shopping district set to open at London’s King’s Cross
The district is slated to open on Oct. 26.
Retail Centers | Aug 16, 2018
Chicago’s new flagship McDonald’s supersizes the sustainability features
The restaurant is located at the intersection of Clark and Ontario streets.
Retail Centers | Aug 2, 2018
Retail's age of experimentation
New technology, changing customer expectations force retailers to rethink their businesses from top to bottom.
Retail Centers | Jun 21, 2018
Driving change in automotive retail
We talk a lot about how the retail landscape, particularly in the realm of shopping malls, has changed in this world of clicks versus / and / or bricks. But at the core of all this change is the consumer.
Retail Centers | Jun 5, 2018
The shopping mall value chain - fixing its weakest links
Old malls have three weak links in their value chain. Each weak link affects the mall’s surrounding community, and if one link breaks, the value chain is broken.
| May 24, 2018
Accelerate Live! talk: Security and the built environment: Insights from an embassy designer
In this 15-minute talk at BD+C’s Accelerate Live! conference (May 10, 2018, Chicago), embassy designer Tom Jacobs explores ways that provide the needed protection while keeping intact the representational and inspirational qualities of a design.