Work resumes at Whole Foods site

The developer behind the future Whole Foods grocery on Hydraulic Road says construction is progressing again after having been idled by stormwater issues.

“We haven’t shut down construction,” said Alan Taylor, vice president of development at Red Light Management Co.

Work recently stopped for several days at the site where the 66,600-square-foot store, three-level parking garage and first section of Hillsdale Drive Extended are set to be built. Taylor said Charlotte-sville officials shut down the project temporarily to make modifications to the site’s storm sewer pipes, but construction is up and running again.

“It’s not a big deal,” Taylor said. “When you do these construction projects and you’re working with things in the ground that have been there half a century, these things happen.”

Ronnie Woodson said his company, RS Woodson Excavating, was still doing utility work on site to divert stormwater.

“We’re working there,” Woodson said.

Taylor said the project has not changed in scale since the city’s Planning Commission approved preliminary site plans in July. He spoke with Whole Foods executives Tuesday, and they “were excited about the new location.”

The new store, which will contain ample community space for farmers markets and meetings and could be the chain’s most environmentally friendly location on the East Coast, would supplant the 27,000-square-foot grocery on U.S. 29 in Albemarle County.

“It’s a great project and it’s a great location,” Taylor said. “We’re actively working on making it happen.”

Fred Shank, a spokesman for Whole Foods, would not comment on the future store. Though sales have increased for the upscale grocer, the weak economy has taken a sizeable chunk of Whole Foods’ quarterly profit. The Austin-based company reported net income of $1.5 million, or 1 cent per share, for the quarter that ended Sept. 28, compared with a net income of $33.9 million, or 24 cents per share, in the same period a year earlier.

Hillsdale Drive is nonetheless creating a roadblock for approval of the project’s final site plans, which city planners say they are still reviewing. The land needed to construct the first portion of the $30.5 million connector road, ultimately linking Hydraulic to north of Greenbrier Drive through the Seminole Square shopping center, has still not been obtained.

Additionally, the state has given Charlottesville $3.1 million for the road’s design and engineering costs, but no more money will be allocated until fiscal 2014, when the city is to receive another $655,000.

Taylor said property negotiations are ongoing and he does not know when they might be resolved.