Global Foods Market Coming to Washington University Project in the Delmar Loop

nextSTL has learned that grocer Global Foods Market will be the largest single retail tenant in the $80M Washington University mixed-use development in The Loop, occupying 15,000 square feet. The grocer currently has one location in Kirkwood. That location is nearly 25,000 total square feet. The Loop site at Eastgate and Delmar will feature a total of appoximately 22,000 square feet of retail space. For reference, Culinaria in downtown St. Louis has a main floor of 21,000 square feet. the current Trader Joe's at the Brentwood Promenade is 10,000 square feet. The lease is expected to be finalized in the coming weeks and Global Foods Market hopes to open by Summer 2014.

A full-service grocer has long topped the list of wished by Loop residents and visitors. Mock-ups of grocery stores have been featured in Loop planning documents over the past several years and a variety of developers have approached grocers from Trader Joe's to Schnucks about openning a store. Although the Culinaria concept has proven successful downtown, Schnuck's has a location nearby on Olive and may have worried about cannibalizing sales, Dierberg's doesn't yet have an urban concept store, Trader Joe's is expanding their Brentwood location and Whole Foods is opening a Central West End store.