Organic Grocer coming to Smyrna

For the Nov 18th agenda, the Columbia Properties owned land at the intersection of South Cobb Drive and East West has submitted changes to community development: It is adding a new booming national organic Grocer from out West, headquartered in Phoenix, called Sprouts Farmers Market (http://sprouts.com/). It is found in a small number of communities from California to Colorado to the plains states. It IPO'ed in August (http://buzz.money.cnn.com/2013/08/01/sprouts-shares-double-in-ipo/) and starting its first expansion East of the Mississippi and apparently picked Smyrna as the home for this store. Its main competitor is Whole Foods. Not knowing much about Sprouts, I asked some people I know out West about it, and one told me, paraphrasing, "Imagine Trader Joes and Whole Foods had a baby. That baby would be Sprouts. We still shop at WF and Sprouts, and both surprise me: WF for being so expensive and Sprouts for being so surprisingly affordable".

See attached photos. Apologies for some of the quality issues due to paper folds.

You can see where Sprouts is currently located here: http://sprouts.com/stores

The change in design calls for:
* 28,000 square foot Sprout grocer
* An increase in square footage of store area
* Some modifications to set-back and decrease in landscaping width behind the Farmers Market but no change to buffer. The Park Valley Apartments will not see the building due to the hill separating them.
* Increase in max building height from 35' to 40' for the market
* Change in monument signs (see attached photos)
* Some parking moved to front of grocer that would have previously been behind building.

The really good news with this beyond the organic store is that we're not going to be seeing an autozone, etc, move in. However, the Krispy Kreme is still going in (and currently under construction) as is the Del Taco.