Brooklyn Nibbles: Supermarket Edition

Having visited the new Bowery Whole Foods yesterday, we have a couple of notes on Brooklyn food retailing.

1) The Borough President noted in a wide ranging set of remarks promoting development in Brooklyn that Trader Joe's "will be in Brooklyn shortly." The prediction, which is clearly based on knowledge of the space the retailer is scouting, is reported in the Bay News. GL certainly loves a mystery. Given that Trader Joe's requires less space than Whole Foods, any number of new buildings or existing spaces come to mind.

2) Speaking of Whole Foods, the Real Estate dispatched someone to gaze upon the toxic parcel of land at Third Street and Third Avenue in Gowanus that the organic food retailer intends to turn into a grocery store by next year. No word on the progress of the cleanup and Whole Foods--which was last heard telling Park Slope groups that they're not interested in putting a green roof on their store or in reducing the size of their mammoth parking garage--had no comment on the status of their plans. A spring start for the conclusion of the detox of the land (which includes benzene in the groundwater) and the start of construction has previously been mentioned.