No Love for Whole Foods in the Haight

If corporate natural foods chain Whole Foods thought the Haight Ashbury neighborhood of San Francisco would give them a groovy welcome with open tie-dyed arms, they were sorely mistaken. Whole Foods had planned to fill a vacant spot on the corner of Haight and Stanyan with one of their food stores, topped with apartments. SF Curbed writer Sarah Hromack reports that the idea has been nixed after anger and disgust from the community.

From SF Curbed:

Is 690 Stanyan Street a dead man waking? Perhaps so, says the developer. The Whole Foods-pimped, Haight Ashbury Improvement Association-approved project, which would replace the now-defunct Cala Foods with 62 condos and a Whole Foods on ground level, has been met with staunch opposition by the Haight Ashbury Neighborhood Council. (Do we have a neighborhood brawl on our hands here? Oh yes, yes we do. How very North Beach of you, Haight!) Though he hasn’t gone on record, Supe Ross Mirkarimi hasn’t exactly supported the development. Neither has the city, which is reportedly dragging its feet on the environmental review process— the developer has languished in limbo for 2 and-a-half years at this point, and sees no end in sight as the Planning Commission hasn’t even granted an initial approval hearing. The dev has spent over $1 million on the EIR, and has “little to show for it except a stack of heavy draft documents.”

Big surprise – a bunch of Haight residents don’t want an expensive natural food store gentrifyin’ the area. If a chain is going to move in, many people would rather have Trader Joes, which is more affordable. There are plenty of others, however, who see the area as a blight and think the Whole Foods project would have cleaned up the area. Here’s hoping they’ll come up with something that reaches a middle ground between a parking lot that stinks of urine and an ugly, car-magnet upscale shop.

Link [SF Curbed] via [Sfist]
Photo credit: Flickr user wili_hybrid

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