If you haven’t driven by the soon-to-be Lakewood Whole Foods lately, you haven’t missed much — at least from street level. However, our eye high in the sky has been keeping tabs on the progress so far, and we’ve watched most of the innards of the old Minyard’s hauled out of the building by Bobcat, loaded into dump trucks and hauled away. The old HVAC units on the roof are gone, too, so it’s safe to say things are on the move with the reconstruction. No front facade changes yet other than punching out the original doors and windows. And no word from Whole Foods on any update to the construction plans, which were scheduled to be completed in January/February 2009.
Meanwhile, nearby at Belmont and Abrams, no action on the piece of land next to Wachovia, either. The sign is gone, and in talking with a neighborhood guy who was interested in leasing the land for a restaurant but couldn’t even get a return phone call from the land owners, it appears they’ve simply tired of talking with small-timers and have tucked tail until the Whole Foods opens in hopes of attracting a national-scale franchise at that point, once traffic and visibility have increased at the corner.
