Looks like the Gowanus Whole Foods has acquired room to grow, even though the only activity on the environmentally-challenged current site is the deepening of the murky lake in the hole left when construction activity stopped last year due to toxic and groundwater issues. Stymied in its efforts to go deep, it looks like the coast is clear for the food retailer to spread out down Third Street to the Gowanus. (Outdoor cafe on the South Brooklyn Seine?) The building supply firm next to the original site is now closed as is Red Hook Crushers (pictured above), the concrete recycling business along the Gowanus Canal. The crushing operation was shut down by the Sanitation Department, which has cited "honesty and integrity issues." The owner of the building supply business had told the Brooklyn Paper he was under pressure to sell to Whole Foods, and the retailer did not seem taken with the concept of organic arugula and endive coated with powdery crushed concrete. Even if Whole Foods gets every square inch of property, it won't work its transformational magic on Gowanus until sometime in 2008.
· Toxic Organic: Gowanus Whole Foods Delayed Again [Curbed]
· Builders crushed by closure of the "Red Hook Crushers" [Bk Papers]
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