Whole Foods Market opens

Whole Foods Market unveiled its first Las Vegas store Wednesday, and amid the standard design of the certified organic grocer's palace lay a few perks specifically designed for Las Vegas shoppers.

Located on Charleston Boulevard near Fort Apache Road, the store measures 40,000 square feet, and is much the same as the other 21 in the company's Southern Pacific region.

But Whole Foods made a careful study of what Las Vegas would need, and implemented the appropriate interior design alterations -- most of them larger.

"When we considered the Las Vegas audience, we said, `fresh seafood, huge produce selection, and let's make sure prepared food is the best ever,'" said Elizabeth Carovillano, regional marketing director.

Consequently, the salad, taco and sushi bar portions of the store reflect expanded dimensions. Carovillano said the market has 60 feet of salad bar alone, by her estimation.

"We knew people in Las Vegas needed another place for meals on the go," she said. "People are busy, there's a lot of families here. There's a lot of restaurants that do very well around here and we know that we can share that business with them because they're packed during lunch."

The seafood department was sized 8 feet longer to make it bigger than that at any store in the region, according to Carovillano. The same applies for the produce section, which offers about 1,000 square feet of organic fruits and vegetables.

The interior's color scheme is also tailored to suit Las Vegas.

"The inside of the store is always going to reflect, to the greatest degree that we can, some flavor of the neighborhood," said Michael Besancon, regional president. "So you can see the colors and everything are really subtle desert tones, that kind of thing. It's warm, because it's hot here. But the store is designed to fit in with the community."

With its location in the Crossroad Commons retail center in the western valley, Besancon said the uniqueness of the organic products will bring in customers from throughout the valley, as well as from Utah.

Aesthetically, the look of the store's front also differs from the other branches in that it blends in with the rest of the center. It was "dictated" by the Peccole group, the center's owner, according to Besancon.

Carovillano said she believes Whole Foods' presence will contribute a unique dimension to the Las Vegas business landscape.

"We don't think a lot of people in Las Vegas have ever seen this before unless they've been in another Whole Foods," she said. "So we really wanted to create for Las Vegas the most special shopping experience -- we're not a grocery store, we're a food market. I think people are really going to sense that we're about food."

Real Estate home