Gentle Strength, the threedecade-old, Tempe-based natural foods cooperative at University Drive and Mill Avenue, plans to move to cheaper quarters.
The community-operated grocer has put its property up for sale.
The lot includes the 10,700-square-foot market and 3,300-square-foot administration building on a 1.7 acre campus. The co-op has been in its current location since 1985.
Greg Abbott and Brian Gast of DeRito Partners are looking for a buyer and searching for new space for the store a mile or two away, pending the sale of its current digs.
Gentle Strength, which has faced tough competition from companies such as Whole Foods and Wild Oats markets in recent years, could get a needed jolt of cash by shedding the property and opting for smaller space farther from the prime Mill Avenue retail corridor.
Co-op committee member Matt Gismondi said Arizona State University and Arizona Cardinals games and special events on Mill have a negative impact on business.
Gentle Strength almost sold the place a couple of years ago to Target, but the deal fell through.
PROMENADE DOINGS
CB Richard Ellis Investors of Los Angeles sold Scottsdale Promenade for $18.3 million to ALRO Investors of Scottsdale. That’s the 140,000-square-foot retail and office complex at the northeast corner of 70th Street and Shea Boulevard, not the 900,000-square-foot shopping center at the southeast corner of Scottsdale Road and Frank Lloyd Wright Boulevard.
BREAD BIZ
Scottsdale-based Wildflower Bread Company is building a store in Gilbert at Val Vista Drive and Baseline Road.
It will open in April, said Louis Basile Jr., founder and driving force behind the bakery-restaurant’s soaring popularity in the East Valley.
The company has shops in Scottsdale, Tempe and Chandler, but this will be the first Gilbert version. Sitting on the Mesa-Gilbert border, the store will serve customers from both municipalities.
"We like the area. It’s a phenomenal community, and we saw a void for our segment of business," Basile said.
NEW STORES
Mesa’s Superstition Springs Center is getting a new batch of stores.
Aeropostale, Bourbon St. Grill, Buckle and Christopher & Banks are expected to open within a couple of months.
If you have a new shop to tell us about or you see activity at a retail location and are wondering what’s happening, let us know.
