Whole Foods Coming to HoCo?

After forty four years, Town Center may finally be getting a grocery store. Multiple informed sources have confirmed that Whole Foods Market is in the final stages of negotiations with the Howard Hughes Corporation to lease the main floor of the former Rouse Company headquarters building to become the organic grocers ninth Maryland store and first in Howard County. The other three floors of the re purposed building will likely become a mix of office and other retail.

Town Center is the only Columbia village that has never had a grocery store. Out of the ten villages in the planned community, it has the fewest number of dwelling units. That is about to change. With the redevelopment process now underway, Town Center will eventually become one of the largest villages in Columbia, second only to Long Reach in terms of total residential units.

Snagging Whole Foods for Town Center would be a huge coup for the developer and should act as a catalyst for additional redevelopment around Lake Kittamaqundi.

The former Rouse headquarters is a four story 127,000 square foot office building designed by Frank Gehry. It was completed in 1974 and remained the headquarters of Columbia’s original developer until The Rouse Company merged with General Growth Properties in 2004. Today, only a small portion of the building is occupied by its current owners, Howard Hughes, the new entity that was created by GGP and spun off when the company emerged from bankruptcy a year ago. While the Columbia mall remains part of General Growth, much of the undeveloped land in Town Center and several buildings at the lakefront, became part of Howard Hughes.

As part of the redevelopment legislation, the developer agreed to preserve the iconic lakefront building.