Whole Foods Construction Update!

Well, looky here folks. A FiPS tipster kindly sent in this photo showing some major progress being made on the Whole Foods site on 3rd Ave. in Gowanus. 

They finished the foundation and what appears to be the basement level walls. Two Iron workers, a couple guys on the ground, and a crane operator got all of this beam work done in a couple days.

It's all happening.

[video]: Former MTV Veejay Kennedy Takes on Gowanus Whole Foods

Is Whole Foods going to straight up ruin Brooklyn?

Reason TV wanted to know, so they sent former MTV heartthrob Kennedy out to investigate. From what I can gather in this video, old people are outraged at Hell Foods' imminent arrival, while Food Coop members don't give a shit since they get their organic quinoa dirt cheap anyway. 

Seeing Kennedy on TV again (be it Internet TV) is making me nostalgic for the 90's. I think I'm going to pop in a casette tape of Veruca Salt, tear into a pack of Gushers and watch Reality Bites on VHS until my mom calls me for dinner.

Whole Foods to finally open in Gowanus

Artist rendering via www.crainsnewyork.com

Well, guys. Whole Foods did it. After the organic market spent eight whole years hovering its ass over Gowanus -- a process that FiPS reader Thomas just yesterday called "completely exhausting," The Board of Standards and Appeals has unanimously voted to grant them permission to build a 56,000 square foot store on 3rd Ave and 3rd Street. 

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Whole Foods Really, Really, Really Wants You to Like Them.

Photo via NY Mag

The New York Times is promising us that a vote is imminent-ish on the 3rd Avenue Whole Foods cluster fuck.   Please, dear sweet baby Jeebus, let this be so. This whole ordeal has become completely exhausting.  If someone told me that I had six months to live, I would ask them to start talking to me about the 3rd Avenue Whole Foods project, because that would be the longest fucking six months of my entire pathetic, miserable life. 

So, thank you, New York Times, for letting us know that this battle is drawing to a close.  And fuck you, New York Times, for letting us know that this battle is drawing to a close.  Because now we have to blog about this shit, again. Like we did the last time. And the time before that. And the other time, when we wrote this.

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The Artists and Factories (And This Contributor) Vs. Whole Foods

Via www.crainsnewyork.com

Because there's no where else in Brooklyn to get organic produce, except for, you know, all of the places that sell organic produce, Whole Foods is continuing it's long, hard-fought battle to open a 58,000 square foot grocery store in Gowanus. The space they want is only zoned for 10,000 square feet of commercial retail space, but Whole Foods is hell bent on settling there, perhaps because the nearby canal makes its own unique form of compost tea.  

Whole Foods recently took another run at the windmill (and by "windmill" I mean "Board of Standards and Appeals"), only to find that a coalition of artists and light industrial business owners have joined together to oppose the construction of a gigantic grocery store at 3rd and 3rd.

Here's what each side is arguing.

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