Whole Foods: Maybe Not?

As first reported here on Thursday, the Gowanus / Park Slope / Carroll Gardens / Boerum Hill Whole Foods site is continuing with it's environmental remediation (as much as capping can be considered remediation), which seemed to bode well for the prospects of those who love their foods whole. But today, the Daily News is reporting that the news from Whole Foods' lawyers may not be so positive:

""No decision has been made," said spokesman Michael Sinatra. "We're kind of taking it step by step." Plans to open the upscale natural food chain's first Brooklyn store at Third Ave. and Third St. were thrown into disarray when leaky oil tanks were found buried beneath the site in 2006, contaminating the soil with cancer-causing chemicals, such as benzene.

At the time, store officials said they would clean up the toxic 2.1-acre site and open in 2008, but the deadline sailed by with little progress. Now, the company is vowing to clean up the mess, but may never build a store. "When [the cleanup] is done, it will be reassessed and [Whole Foods will] determine what will happen, whether a store will open or won't open," Sinatra said. "Eventually we'd like to bring a store to Brooklyn. Whether or not that will be the site, we're undecided at this point.""

Persistent rumors abound that the Whole Foods site will eventually be developed for residential uses, which makes the decision to cap all the more interesting, as that would not suffice as remediation for many residential uses. Perhaps they are capping so that the land may retain some commercial value in the interim while the Superfund status is decided?