Just spotted this while heading through the Fauntleroy/Alaska/39th intersection, and pulled over to grab a pic. The sign appeared after a day in which we checked yet another “is the project dead?” rumor — several WSB’ers sent us the link to an online report in which a writer (without a quote to substantiate) claimed “new stores were on hold” — we subsequently contacted the regional Whole Foods spokesperson, who promptly responded that report was wrong and had even omitted information she said she had given the writer to clarify a company memo he’d received, and YES, the West Seattle store is still on schedule. (As we reported here a week ago, after checking yet another round of rumors with both Whole Foods and with developer BlueStar.) So now — a sign. As we noted in last week’s story, BlueStar explains that the reason you’re not seeing active construction work at the site right now is that they’re between “phases” and will resume early in the year (that’s when they say the big crane will show up, too). The project continues to evolve behind the scenes as well; BlueStar’s project manager, Easton Craft, tells WSB today, “Based on the uniqueness of the current economic climate we are able to create some value engineering opportunities that will reduce the overall project budget. We plan to take full advantage of those opportunities. Conducting the value engineering exercise will have no discernible impact on the design of the project. We have now gone through the MUP [Master Use Permit] process twice and are excited about the current design. We are also very happy with our General Contractor, Ledcor Construction. They have been and continue to be a valued asset to this project and an excellent team player in this process.” (All WSB coverage of this project is archived here.)
| 12 COMMENTS