Whole Foods buying Earth Fare store off Gunbarrel Road in Chattanooga

Staff Photo by John Rawlston / Chattanooga's new Earth Fare grocery store is located next to the Target store on Gunbarrel Road in East Brainerd.
Staff Photo by John Rawlston / Chattanooga's new Earth Fare grocery store is located next to the Target store on Gunbarrel Road in East Brainerd.

Whole Foods has entered into an agreement to acquire the assets of the former Earth Fare location on Gunbarrel Road, which would give the grocer two stores in Chattanooga.

Earth Fare Inc., which filed for bankruptcy in February, has agreed to sell its Gunbarrel Road store to Whole Foods Market Group Inc., according to a U.S. Bankruptcy Court filing.

Amazon-owned Whole Foods would pay $900,000 for the assets of the Gunbarrel Road location, said the filing in the bankruptcy court in Delaware.

The site is located in a shopping center owned by Chattanooga-based CBL Properties and situated between anchor tenants Target and Kohl's.

There's no indication yet when a new Whole Foods store would open. Whole Foods currently runs a market off Manufacturers Road in Chattanooga's North Shore.

CBL spokeswoman Stacey Keating said that Whole Foods Market will be "a great addition" to the shopping center just down Gunbarrel from Hamilton Place mall and complement the recently remodeled Target and Kohl's.

She said she didn't have any information about an opening date. Whole Foods did not return an email seeking comment.

The bankruptcy court deal with Whole Foods also includes the assets for a former Earth Fare location in Asheville, North Carolina, for $1.6 million, the bankruptcy filing said.

Earth Fare, an organic and natural grocery chain, also operated a store in Hixson when it announced suddenly last February that it was closing all 50 of its stores across the country as it searches to find a new owner for the troubled grocery chain.

Earth Fare, based in Asheville, said the store closings were due to its inability to refinance its debt, citing "continued challenges in the retail industry."

Amid the coronavirus, grocery stores are one of the few business segments which have seen a surge in consumers.

For example, Food City, which operates in four states and is the biggest grocery chain in the Chattanooga area with more than 20 local supermarkets, announced two weeks ago plans to hire another 2,500 workers to help staff the business as consumers buy more food and other products at grocery stores rather than at restaurants, schools and work sites.

The Whole Foods market at Two North Shore on Manufacturers Road was originally a Greenlife grocery store starting at that location in 2007 until it was sold in 2010.

Chattanooga grocer Chuck Pruett initially opened Greenlife in 1999 on Hixson Pike in Riverview.

Meanwhile, the founder of the Earth Fare health foods grocery chain is working to reopen some of the 50 supermarkets it closed in February when the company filed for bankruptcy

An investment group organized by Earth Fare Founder Roger Derrough is buying back seven or eight stores across the Carolinas, Georgia and Virginia.

"People have come up to me crying that they were so upset," Earth Fare founder Roger Derrough told WLOS-TV in Asheville over the weekend. "Once the chain folded, and all these stores were sitting empty, you know, it started to be a thought that, you know, wow, maybe this can happen."

Business Editor Dave Flessner contributed to this story.

Contact Mike Pare at mpare@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @MikePareTFP.

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