Reality Check it is a Bee series hold employees and organizations accountable and shine a light on their decisions. Have a tip? Email realitycheck@sacbee.com.
It’s been more than a year since Sacramento developers began work to bring the city its first Whole Foods Market, and people are looking for an upgrade.
Last week, Carol Purin reached out to The Sacramento Bee’s service journalism team, which focuses on community-focused news, to ask: “Is the Whole Foods Market slated for J Street at 16th Street still in the works?”
Here’s what we know so far:
Is Whole Foods supermarket coming to Sacramento?
On a October 2022 letter obtained by The BeeDowntown Sacramento Partnership “strongly urged” Mayor Darrell Steinberg and the council to support a proposed development at the corner of 16th and J streets that would include a Whole Foods grocery store.
“On behalf of the Downtown Sacramento Partnership, I am writing to strongly urge the City to support the municipal tax credit loan requested by SKK Developments to complete the mixed-use retail and residential development, featuring Whole Foods as an anchor retail tenant,” the nonprofit agency wrote.
In the letter, the Downtown Sacramento Partnership said the supermarket chain would open a location at 1617 J St. in Boulevard Park, the former home of Lucca Restaurant & Bar, with 198 housing units above it, The Bee reported in February 2023.
That February, Steinberg hinted an “iconic” store move to the same area in a State of the Center speech.
“The downtown of our future will be a neighborhood with a healthy mix of housing and jobs,” Steinberg said. “Imagine an iconic supermarket on the corner of 16th and J. It’s happening.”
However, this has not yet happened.
The Bee recently contacted Steinberg’s team, Downtown Sacramento Partnership and the City of Sacramento Community Development Department for answers on the status of the Whole Foods development near downtown.
All three entities referred The Bee reporter to SKK Developmentswho did not respond to multiple requests for comment as of Tuesday afternoon.
“The mayor will not comment on the status of any specific development,” Mary Lynne Vellinga, Steinberg’s chief of staff, wrote in an email to The Bee on Monday.
She declined to provide further details about the status of Sacramento’s proposed Whole Foods site.
Vellinga shared an official statement from Steinberg shortly thereafter.
“We remain committed to the idea of a full-sized grocery store serving the downtown area and are working diligently to make it happen,” the mayor wrote.
This isn’t the first time a Whole Foods store has appeared in the city center.
In 2015, city officials approved a 41,000-square-foot area Whole Foods near 21st and L streets in the city center.
“This is an iconic new project for downtown,” then-Councilman Steve Hansen said at the time, calling the proposed project “catalytic.”
However, that grocery store never materialized.
“We Sac Urbanites are not up to some kind of high retail standard!” Purin, a Sacramento Bee reader, wrote in an email Tuesday, adding that she feels “forgotten again.”
The Bee reached out to Whole Foods multiple times for comment on proposals to build a store in Sacramento but had not received a response as of Tuesday afternoon.
Is Sacramento still getting a new supermarket near downtown?
It is not clear.
Madelyn Smith, director of communications and outreach for the Downtown Sacramento Partnership, declined to go into details about the city’s first Whole Foods site.
“I’m sorry we don’t have any updates,” she wrote in a June 7 email, before telling The Bee reporter to contact city officials “for more information.”
A city spokeswoman confirmed something is in the works at 1617 J St.
In a June 7 email, Kelli Trapani of the City of Sacramento’s Community Outreach Department said records show a development at that address was approved, but a future tenant was not listed.
Subsequent building permits also do not specify a tenant, she added.
What is the Whole Foods Market?
Whole Foods Market, the largest supermarket chain in the United States, is known for its natural and organic products. Amazon acquired the company in 2017 for US$13.7 billion.
There are more than 90 Whole Foods Markets locations in Californiathree in the Sacramento region.
One store is at 1001 Galleria Blvd. in Roseville and another is at 270 Palladio Parkway in Folsom. The third location is at 4315 Arden Way in Arden Arcade.
What do you want to know about life in Sacramento? Ask our service journalism team your burning questions in the module below or email us at servicejournalists@sacbee.com.
