Whole Foods Market announces target date

Ryan Carter

Whole Foods officials have announced a May 19 target date for opening

a new, larger store at 331 N. Glendale Ave.

Dave Abersold, manager of the Glendale Whole Foods Market, said

the specialty grocer is beginning to hire workers and lay down plans

to almost double its workforce for the new site.

The new store will be 44,000 square feet, 32,000 square feet

larger than the market’s existing site at 826 N. Glendale Ave. That

location is among the most successful of the chain’s 20 Southern

California stores since it started as Mrs. Gooch’s.

“Whole Foods has been in the community for 18 years, and to make a

long story short, we outgrew the old store years ago,” Abersold said.

“The community has been asking for a larger one, and we’ve been able

to find a site that fits our format.”

That format at the new Glendale store will include food and salad

bars, in-house coffee roasting, a bakery and an outdoor eating patio

with landscape features such as waterfalls and trees. The store will

continue to stock the natural and specialty foods that are popular

with customers, officials said.

The reconstruction of the former Albertsons building will include

remodeling the entire exterior facade, which will have a

6,000-square-foot mezzanine. Plans also include a 38-foot roof tower

and a 148,000-square-foot lot with more than 180 parking spaces.

City officials had once hoped the lot could be used as a park.

“The intention was that the site once be a park, but I would

contend that once we are done, it will look like a park,” said

Michael Besancon, president of Whole Foods’ Southern Pacific Region.

Besancon said that when the new site is complete, it will be the

third largest among 20 regional stores.

On Friday and Saturday, job applicants showed up en masse to a job

fair held in the new site’s parking lot. Abersold said 600 people

showed up looking for work Friday. Managers will bring 115 employees

from the old store, and will hire another 120 to 140 for the new

store, he added.