Bagging A National Company

West Ashley may very soon become a nirvana for grocery stores. Not bad, considering that not too long ago the swath of land between Orleans and Savage roads was on the verge of being declared a “food desert” by the federal government.
Everywhere you turn these days, a new grocery store is being put in, planned, or rumored.
It’s old news that Harris Teeter will open a store in the former Office Depot spot in Westwood Plaza at the corner of Sam Rittenberg and St. Andrews boulevards. And that another Harris Teeter is also slated for the West Ashley traffic circle.
One of the loudest rumors on the street in West Ashley is that the former Food Lion site on St. Andrews will soon welcome a national organic grocery chain. Some are hoping for a Trader Joe’s, others a Whole Foods, or could there be another option, such as an alternative organic store, like California-based Lucky’s Market?
Mikell Harper, the vice president in charge of the site for property owners Gramling Brothers, would not comment on the status of any deals to take over the spot from Food Lion, which still holds a lease on the property.
Gramling Brothers has presented plans for a major improvement at the corner of Savannah Highway and Wappoo Road — the focus of a recent planning charette hosted by city and county staffers.
Mandi Herring, the city’s designated West Ashley planner, gushed this week about the designs she’s seen that would replace a crummy-looking former Kerr Drugs and two side parcels with a mixed-use project.
While some of the project, from the plans she’s seen, would include off-site storage, Herring insisted it was a far cry from the much-criticized Extra Space Storage facility on St. Andrews.
Herring said not only would it not be as massive, it would be fronted by several retail spaces, including what she nicknamed a “sit-n-sip” where locals could enjoy a beverage. She said that the city has already approved the annexation of the property.
With it in the city, Herring said Gramling Brothers was doing it “the right way,” insuring that whatever final plan emerges, it would fall under the purview and watchful eye of the city’s Design Review Board.
With the city able to nix materials orand architecture, Herring said the project would avoid complaints lodged against the Extra Space building. “The word ‘storage’ may make some cringe, but from what we’ve seen, it’s going to be a really cool design,” she said.
And then there’s the big fish: Whole Foods.
Two city councilmen report having been told that the organichi-chi grocer has approved two spots in Charleston. Did that mean the Charleston area was getting two more stores, or that one store had been approved for either site?
Requests for comment from Whole Foods were not returned.
City Councilman Aubry Alexander said he’d heard “on the street” from two different sources that there would be one store each of the following two years.
One potential site has already made headlines in the former peninsular home of Morris Sokol Furniture on King Street. But where was the second site? With a Whole Foods already in Mt. Pleasant, speculation began that West Ashley could get the other.
And there was a stumbling block for the downtown site: money. City Councilman Bill Moody, who represents a big chunk of West Ashley, said that the national grocery was interested in having a parking deck outback — understandable in that parking-deprived section of town.
Moody said he and a few other councilmen met preemptively with Mayor Joseph P. Riley Jr., and quashed any chance of the city providing the funding for the parking deck, which could run upward of $16 million.
“The city only has about $35 million left in its bonding ability,” Moody said. “And there’s a lot of places we’d rather see that money spent on this side of the river, like improvements to Sam Rittenberg, or potentially a parking deck for the Avondale Point that would really make that part of town sing.”
Scott Adams, one of the founding partners in the Adams & Wilson Development firm that is handling Whole Foods’ expansion in the Charleston area, was very tight lipped.
“I will not speak for our clients,” Adams said, preferring to let Whole Foods handle the flow of information. Adams has worked with national clients before, including CVS, Starbucks, and Darden Restaurants.
Adams said no request for a publicly funded parking deck at the downtown site ever was ever presented by his client at a city meeting.
Regardless, the rebirth of West Ashley seems to be going swimmingly, as if on cue with this past weekend’s deluge.