Whole Foods megastore coming to Uptown

Even though the traffic will be so thick we're sure we'll never get to go there, Houstonist was excited to learn this morning that a super-sized Whole Foods Market flagship store is coming to Uptown. Whole Foods announced it will build an 80,000-square-foot store in the unfortunately named BLVD Place (which, the Chronicle tells us, is pronounced "Boulevard Place" — so, uh, why not just name it that?), a 21-acre mixed-use development at the corner of Post Oak and San Felipe.

If you've been to Whole Foods' main store on Lamar in Austin, you'll have an idea of what the new Houston store will be like: The BLVD Place location will be the same size as the Lamar flagship. At the Austin store, there are six mini-restaurants, 600 cheeses, 800 varieties of beer and a cook-to-order seafood counter. (There's also a chocolate fountain, a feature we hope is replicated in the Houston store.)

BLVD Place will include 600,000 square feet of retail, restaurant and office space, plus 800 high-rise residential units and a 300-room luxury hotel. Two existing shopping centers, Fashion Square (home of Eatzi's and Cafe Annie) and the Pavilion (Hermès, Americas) will be torn down to make way for the development, which is being designed by Jose Palacios of DMJM Design in Los Angeles. Developer Ed Wulfe said it's a goal to retain the businesses already on the site; the new development will be built in phases so they don't experience any downtime.

Construction is set to begin at the end of the year, with the entire complex set for completion in 2009.

Photo by flickr user kevandem.