HYDE PARK — The construction of a Whole Foods in Hyde Park has been pushed back by a year, but the store still will open in 2015, according to the developers.
Whole Foods will open in fall 2015 as the anchor tenant of the $114 million City Hyde Park project, a redevelopment of the Village Shopping Center by Antheus Capital.
“We’re still on schedule for that,” said Peter Cassel, director of community development for Antheus’ development arm, the Silliman Group.
Demolition of the former Village Foods grocery store, 1521 E. Hyde Park Blvd., and the rest of the shopping center was originally expected to be completed this year.
The project has undergone repeated changes, including nixing a 20-story residential tower, to keep the development alive.
Cassel said the design is now finalized, and he expects the city to approve building and demolition permits in October.
There were concerns among neighbors that disagreements between Whole Foods and the developer were delaying the project.
Cassel denied that there were any problems with the upscale grocer, but said the lease was changed.
“We did an amendment with them,” Cassel said, declining to specify what was changed. “It didn’t change anything.”
A representative from Whole Foods did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
Cassel will give an update on the project at a Monday meeting of the 53rd Street Tax Increment Financing District, which in January approved a $11.3 million tax benefits package for the Jeanne Gang-designed project.
The meeting is at 7 p.m. in the Little Theater of Kenwood Academy High School, 5015 S. Blackstone Ave.
