By Beth Weinberg
To lure today's urban condo buyer, forget the pumped-up super gym, and make room for an organic-eats-shilling, artisanal food market. Convenient and encouraging of a healthy lifestyle, accompanying grocery stores are the latest must-have amenity for high-rise residents. In New York City alone, at least six specialty food stores will open in mixed-use spaces (residential buildings with commercial storefronts) this year. And developers in cities such as Vancouver and Seattle are going even further, building new floors of condominiums atop already-existing grocery store foundations.
In Pictures: Condos With Built-In Supermarkets
Pairing food retail with residences is not a new idea. But Robert J. Bond, president of Bond Companies, a professional real estate and investment services company with offices in Chicago and Los Angeles, says that there’s been a shift in the approach. “In the past, a food store might have been an afterthought. Now, the shop-at-home experience is a starting point.”
The arrangement is a win-win for both developers and food retailers. Condominiums and apartments with full-service food markets often sell faster and for more than comparable units without them. And grocers benefit from a population of self-selected shoppers who live just above the store.
Whole Foods is a national leader when it comes to mixed-use development and its store in the
In Vancouver’s urban Yaletown neighborhood, a 100-unit condominium-and-loft development by Rize Alliance called the The Metropolis shares space with a 12,300-square-foot Choices Markets, Canada’s largest retailer of natural and organic foods. It’s a perfect marriage. Not only is it a densely populated area with a lot of younger single people and busy professionals, it is indicative of the urban growth in general.
“As populations rise, the amount of land in cities continues to decrease,” said Sara Yuristy of Choices Markets. Incorporating amenities, including grocery stores, into living spaces addresses this constraint while facilitating green living, something that’s a natural fit for Vancouverites who tend to value living green.”
In the rental market, food-retail is being coupled with apartments for impressive results. By December 2012, a 16-story luxury apartment project in Chicago was 85-percent leased, something that can be attributed, at least in part, because of news that in June 2012, Plum Market, a progressive grocer that features natural, organic, local and specialty items, would open on the main level. The 27,000-square-foot market is the first Chicago store for the Michigan-based company.
In Pictures: Condos With Built-In Supermarkets
Beyond driving mixed use condominium sales, strategically placed food markets also have a more generalized impact on real estate. Opened in depressed downtowns and densely populated neighborhoods, a domino effect is often set in motion. When customers are drawn from a larger radius and local jobs are created, the area can experience revitalization, something that can drive up both values in both the commercial and residential spheres.
