Photo courtesy of Amanda Galloway
A rendering of the completed City Foundry site
City Foundry has been filling fast with retail, entertainment, and eateries, with the forthcoming establishment announcing the food hall was 80 percent leased as of April. On June 20, another name has announced they've signed a lease—Fresh Thyme Farmers Market.
“There’s a lot of food options at the City Foundry: We have the food hall, we have the restaurants," says principal developer Steve Smith, CEO of the Lawrence Group. "We really wanted a grocer, and we liked the idea of having a fresh marketplace grocer.”
The Chicago-based grocery store which specializes in "natural, fresh, and healthy offerings" will open in the Foundry come fall of 2020, making it the St. Louis area's seventh location. The 30,000-square-foot development will be located in the revitalized Byco building, at the corner of Forest Park Avenue and Spring Avenue, in Prospect Yards. The store will also house a deli, bakery, and dairy section and provide surface-level parking.
The grocery's opening has already excited neighbors, including Saint Louis University president, Dr. Fred P. Pestello, who, in a statement, shared that the location "will provide access to fresh, healthy, and quality food at a great value to a diverse cross-section of St. Louis, including the University’s 19,000 students, faculty, staff, and clinicians.”
The new addition to the neighborhood is a part of the Foundry’s ongoing transformation into “a dynamic hub of innovation” including the creation St. Louis’ first "true" food hall. With a projected opening of spring 2020, the former Century Electric Foundry complex has plans for 122,000- square-feet of restaurant and entertainment space, 105,000-square-feet of retail space, and 107,000-square-feet of office space.
“A grocery is a regular destination and Midtown St. Louis is growing rapidly in its population, a tremendous amount of housing is being built within a one-mile radius of City Foundry, so having a grocer in our development will bring people to our site," Smith says. "And, for Fresh Thyme, they’re meeting the need and serving the community that’s currently around them.”
