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Phillydeal06. renderings for the grocery that MOM’s
Organic Market plans to open, in the former Family Court/Snellenberger’s
warehouse building at 34 S. 11th St., in early 2016, in case we want to use.
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Mom's Organic Market, a Maryland-based chain, is planning
a new Center City grocery at 34 S. 11th St. in Philadelphia's new East Market
development.
Like a more intimate Whole Foods fit into a Trader
Joe's-sized 16,000 square-foot space, Mom's is designed to help draw the young
and retired professionals to the four-acre block of planned new and renovated
stores, apartments, offices, bars and restaurants bounded by Market, Chestnut,
11th, and 12th Streets.
East Market's investors include National Real Estate
Advisors L.L.C., a Washington-based manager for the International Brotherhood
of Electrical Workers' pension plan, plus local investors Joss Realty Partners,
Young Capital L.L.C., and SSH Real Estate.
Mom's is the project's first retail tenant.
"It's important for us to get a grocer," said
Daniel Killinger, East Market's development director. Especially a higher-end
organic grocer: "Their mission is right in line with our target market,
people who live, work, and shop here."
Plus some who drive: The store, besides its loading dock
and freight elevator, will have 55 free shopper parking spaces in a garage.
Mom's is slated to open when renovations are done a year
from now, in a former warehouse most recently used by Family Court. The
developers also plan to turn the upstairs into 160,000 square feet of offices.
This will be Mom's second Philadelphia-area store,
following a Lancaster Avenue location in Bryn Mawr's Rosemont section that
opened last winter.
"They are seriously organic. It has a very nice
selection of organic produce," said Bryn Mawr shopper Beverly Schwartz.
"It has packaged meats, but it doesn't have a butcher area like Whole
Foods, and the lunch counter is limited. If they expand those, it will be great
competition."
The chain has 12 stores in the Washington area, mostly in
the suburbs. "Bryn Mawr was our first store outside the
Washington-Baltimore area, and it's been fantastic - our best opening
ever," said Mom's chairman Scott Nash, who says he founded the business in
his mother's garage in 1987.
Mom's includes a Naked Lunch counter, serving fresh
juices, kale and spinach salads, and dishes based on black beans, brown rice
pilafs, and yams.
"Everything custom-steamed and 100 percent organic.
It's a bargain - a pound and a half, two pounds, for $9," Nash said. The
store promises local produce like minimally processed milk from Trickling
Springs dairy in Chambersburg, plus free electric-car charging,
"sustainable seafood," lightbulb and phone recycling, and other green
amenities.
Nash said Mom's fits into the Philadelphia organics
market between neighborhood independents and supermarket-size Whole Foods.
Mom's vice president of operations, Eric Yetta, used to work for Trader Joe's,
which Nash said used its first Philadelphia stores as a "practice run to
get into New York."
Nash said Mom's seeks to underprice what Whole Foods or
Wegmans charge for similar items, while acknowledging you can buy commercial
produce for less at Acme or ShopRite, or ethnic markets.
"You pay for what you get," Nash added.
"Someone walking into a Lexus dealership won't say, 'But you're more
expensive than the Toyota down the road.' It's chichi, but we are also very low-key,
no-frills."
As an early tenant, he added, East Market gave his store
"a good deal."
Retail real estate broker McDevitt Co., which scouts
sites for Urban Outfitters, also represents East Market and helped land Mom's.
"What it offers is exactly the same vision we
have" for the development, said Paige Jaffe, a McDevitt site specialist.
She said her firm "is in discussions with a range of retailers and
restaurants" to fill spaces next to Mom's.
Source: Philly.com
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