Update: The Whole Foods will open at 8am on Wednesday, February 16.
Well, that sure didn’t take long. Whole Foods, not yet even open for business in the Haight, has already been welcomed to the neighborhood in a very Haight kind of way. Driving through the Haight yesterday on broker’s tour, I noticed that the building has already been tagged with graffiti. The picture below is of the north wall along Haight street, but there was also graffiti on the front of the building, even though it is fenced off and under “24 hour video surveillance.”
I really hope that this doesn’t become a common problem for the Whole Foods in the Haight, particularly since it looks like there is a rather nice tile mural being installed by an artist on the front of the building.
The entire Whole Foods Haight project has been an on-again, off-again affair, with a proposal for a much larger Whole Foods store with condominiums above creating much neighborhood debate. The larger project was eventually approved, but by that time the market for real estate construction financing had taken a nose dive, and the developer shelved the project. At which point Whole Foods signed a long term lease for the old building and began renovating it.
Originally they were saying it would be open in late 2010, but clearly the Haight wasn’t grace with a new grocery store last year. According to some random checkers at the Pacific Heights Whole Foods, the Haight location is scheduled to open within a month or so. It will be interesting to see how how it changes the dynamics at the west end of Haight street, a place usually known for homeless kids with shopping carts and pit bulls harassing McDonalds patrons when not busy complaining about the elimination of the 99 cent value meal. Ah, good times in San Francisco indeed.
As a resident in the Haight and also a next door neighbor of the Whole Foods store I agree it will be interesting to see how they are going to patrol all the activity on that corner with Mc Donald’s. Also patroling the parking lot and continued grafffitti and or vandelism….However it is nice to see that corner cleaned up and come to life again after almost 4 years of being a pay-parking lot and an ugly chain link fence wrapping around it. The neighborhood DOES need a grocery store to have more options than overpriced convience stores!! Hopefully the police will step up there foot patrol in the area.
Steven – I’m also pleasantly surprised at how much better the corner looks already, and hope it has a positive influence on the area. I live close by (though not in the Haight), and am looking forward to their opening.
I can’t wait. We really need a grocery store. Haight street market is overpriced. Only options we really have are the Fulton Lucky’s and the stores on Clement or the Trader Joe’s on Geary. Nothing except the Fulton Lucky’s is an easy walk when you are loaded down by groceries.
Holy cow I’m in a picture on the internet! Ahahaha and on a story about dirty street kids and their dirty grafitti lol! Now that’s what I call irony. I miss that coat, but where is my didgeridoo I always carry?