If you've ever worked in one of the shops or offices on the 600 and 700 blocks, then you're familiar with a certain aggravating phenomenon.
Come 3:00 p.m., right when your tummy starts a-rumblin', you are completely out of food choices within walking distance, especially if you're wearing ridiculously high platforms or stilettos that day, and all walking just hurts.
That's because most of the eateries within a several-block radius are breakfast and lunch-only deals that are all buttoned up by 2:30; well past lunchtime for the normals.
You then have two choices: you can either hop in the car, which seems to defeat the purpose of working downtown, what with all the options around, or, assuming you brought a pair of flip-flops you can wear or don't mind going barefoot, you can walk to Acropolis or La V (R.I.P., King & I) or a few other places.
But all that's going to change, reports Fox 13 News.
Soon-ish, there will be another option. A developer is planning to put up a new grocery store on land that's now a parking lot for the office building across the street from the State Theater. (This reporter used to work in said office building while reporting for the Trib, which had its St. Pete bureau there for a spell.)
Construction of the planned grocery store will likely coincide with a new apartment building coming up just south of the property.
You can read Fox 13's story and check out the renderings here.
You will probably note that the font style and color used in the renderings look just like those that are employed in the Publix logo. However, the developer has declined to say whether the grocer will be the occupant. While we shouldn't get our hopes up too high, Whole Foods has for years been rumored to be scouting out spots in Downtown St. Pete.
Whole Foods in St. Pete, and on the 600 Block, too? How cool would that be? We would no longer have to drive across the Howard Frankland (or to Clearwater) to have a place to dump out our wallets when they get too full.
But, again, we won't get our hopes up.
Whether it's a Whole Foods, a Publix or a Harris frickin' Teeter, there will be food for the uncomfortably shoed on the 600 Block.
