New Whole Foods Store Design Is on the Money

Whole Foods Market Financial District NYC Main Image

Whole Foods’ designers needed to visualize the grocery space within a landmark building in New York City's Financial District.

Whole Foods Market’s latest store in New York City – its 17^th in the Big Apple and 534^th chainwide – opened Jan. 11 in the Financial District, in the fittingly named One Wall Street building at 66 Broadway. The historic site, which opened in 1931 to house the Irving Trust Co., underwent a recent multimillion-dollar renovation that added apartments above retail space on the bottom level. The original building’s Art Deco design elements live on as accents throughout store, such as the elevator doors adorning the self-checkout area to the left of the entrance, or the inclusion of a vintage mailbox by the escalators.

Whole Foods’ designers needed to visualize the grocery space within the landmark structure, resulting in roomy aisles and sections that marry industrial touches like exposed pipes in the ceiling with warm neutral colors on the walls. Many of the departments have the feel of little neighborhood shops where customers can browse and get advice from associates.

Across from the entrance-level self-checkouts is a coffee bar, where, for the first time, the grocer is testing a local brand, Brooklyn-based Partners Coffee, while toward the back is the hot-bar area allowing customers interested in grab-and-go fare to get in and out quickly.

The downstairs level includes an impressively stocked Whole Body department, a colorful produce section featuring many locally grown items, as do many other areas of the store; a bakery section with an in-house scratch bread program and products targeting special dietary needs like gluten-free; a cheese counter with about 350 varieties, including an exclusive vegan blue cheese, overseen by a certified cheese professional; a beer section with more than 200 brands, among them nonalcoholic options; a meat department where customers can watch the butchers at work, and custom cuts can be ordered; and a convenient dining section with its own exit.

Following are some images of the Whole Foods store at One Wall Street:

The Whole Foods Market at One Wall Street harvested many original Art Deco elements from the building, including the elevator doors used to adorn the entry-level self-checkout section.
The stainless steel salad bar provides a wealth of items for those in search of organic and special-diet items.
The escalator leading down to various supermarket departments features vintage-inspired signage.
The building's historic letter box has pride of place by the escalators on the lower level.
The colorful produce section includes a ceiling with exposed pipes.
The inviting specialty cheese counter offers about 350 varieties.
Customers can watch butchers at work in the meat department.

The first certified-organic national grocer, Austin, Texas-based Whole Foods has more than 500 stores in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. The company is a wholly owned subsidiary of Seattle-based Amazon, which is No. 2 on The PG 100, Progressive Grocer’s 2022 list of the top food and consumables retailers in North America.