Whole Foods will be setting up shop in the Solo development at Willingdon Avenue and Lougheed Highway in North Burnaby.
The company's cofounder and co-CEO, John Mackey, made the announcement last Wednesday. He said the company has signed eight new leases since its first quarter earnings release, including one in Burnaby.
Jim Bosa, president of Appia Developments, confirmed Whole Foods would be part of Appia's Solo development.
"We'd been working with them on it for about a year," Bosa said in a phone interview Monday, adding that the documents were finalized right before Mackey made the announcement.
"It was all done the day before the announcement was made," he said.
The development is slated to go to third reading by Burnaby council this month. If it passes, it will go to final adoption by council in mid-to late June, according to Bosa, with construction beginning later in the summer.
"We're hoping to start, shovels in the ground, this August," Bosa said.
If that's the case, he expects Phase 1 would be completed by January 2015.
Phase 1 of the project is a 45-storey residential tower, with retail space, including space for Whole Foods.
Whole Foods would open about that time as well, Bosa said.
The plans also include space for a pharmacy, shop or restaurant, and a bank in Phase 2.
The last phase of the project - the 43-storey residential, commercial and office tower - is expected to begin construction in winter 2014.
Plans for Solo include space for a pedestrianfriendly high street for shopping, to be known as Sumas Street, in the centre of the development.
The Solo District Shopping Centre is slated to include four highrise towers with 1,351 units of residential space, according to the project developer, Appia Group.
The residential towers would range in height from 39 storeys to 48 storeys, and the development is also slated to include a 13-storey office tower, with retail and commercial space at the ground level, according to a city report.
