About a month ago, grocery-loving residents of the greater Center City area were abuzz with the news that a new, enormous Whole Foods would be opening at the Best Western site at 22nd Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, replacing the store’s too-small Callowhill location. Coming in 2017, the new market will be part of a larger mixed-use project for the site, which will include apartments, other retail, and underground parking. The Whole Foods will be the second largest in the area according to the Inquirer, just shy of the size of the mammoth location in Plymouth Meeting.

Callowhill WFM

Future site. Image from Orbitz

In Friday’s Philadelphia Business Journal, we learned an additional detail about this project: that Toll Brothers has signed on to be a development partner with Neal Rodin in this here project. You may remember Toll Bros. as the developer behind popular local gated community Naval Square as well as future gated communities 2400 South Street and New Market. It makes sense that Toll is getting involved with another Philly project, but this one is entirely different from any other project they’ve done in town. As in it won’t include gates, among other things.

When Toll came before SOSNA and CCRA with plans for 2400 South Street, they were painfully and aggressively hesitant to get into the retail business in our fair City; but it seems that this different location and/or added familiarity with the local market’s dynamics have softened that perspective. Which is a good thing, since the project calls for like 70,000 sqft of retail.

Much is still unclear, but we only hope that Rodin handles the architecture for the project, lest it possibly look like this:

Original rendering for 2400 South Street.

Sure, the rendering above was improved upon after some strong feedback from the neighborhood, but the above rendering was at one point presented to the community with a straight face. On the other hand, with a location so close to a historic district, maybe the faux-historic look might play with neighbors.

Then again, maybe not.