As I mentioned last week, we continued the River Place “road shows” in Austin and Dallas.  While on the road, I had the opportunity to meet with the Vice President of Real Estate for Whole Foods Market at the company’s headquarters and flagship store in downtown Austin.

The reason for my visit to the Whole Foods HQ was simply to bring our contact up to speed on our plans for River Place, in the event the company decides to open new stores in Indianapolis.  The amount and type of consumer traffic that these stores generate is very desirable to a development like River Place, which is why many of the most successful mixed-use projects around the U.S. host a Whole Foods stores.

If you’ve not been to a Whole Foods store, it’s an amazing experience. Whole Foods Market has grown from a single, natural and organic foods store to a chain of 270 stores in North America and the UK. They are highly selective about what they sell and dedicated to quality standards and committed to, as they say on their website “a sustainable agriculture; while keeping the balance of the food chain, people and Mother Earth.” The Whole Foods website goes on to say that they respect the neighborhood and want to become an integral part of the community and demonstrates their neighborhood commitment by supporting food banks, sponsoring neighborhood events, compensating their team members for community service work and contributing at least 5% of total net profits to non-for-profit organizations. My conclusion after our recent meeting is the company’s employees embodies the philosophy stated on its web site.  Clearly, the people and culture that Whole Foods nurtures is the basis for this successful organization.

If you’re like me and the other 566,127 people that live within a 10 mile radius and roughly 15 minute drive time of River Place, keep your fingers crossed that Whole Foods considers our site, or at least a location somewhere between Fishers, Carmel, and the Geist Communities.  Here’s a couple blogs to check out: General Company blog or the blog of John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods.