"While the PD-GDP provides the development team and city with predictability about how the development will occur over time, it is not sufficiently detailed so as to allow development to actually move forward with building permits and construction," Heather Stouder, the city's planning director said Friday. "This will involve submitting all of the details for the development of the first phase, and will include review by the city’s Urban Design Commission, Plan Commission, and ultimately a decision by the Common Council to rezone the property...and allow the development to move forward. We expect that process to be underway during the first quarter of 2020."

The announcement of Whole Foods making a move west has been years in the making. The 30,000-square-foot store opened in Madison 1996. In 2008, it scrapped plans for a 55,000-square-foot store at Hilldale on a site that ultimately became home to a Target store.

Whole Foods, which was purchased for $13.7 billion by Amazon in August 2017, began offering delivery through Amazon Prime in 2018, which required more space. But in August of that year, the store, located near a spot that has been common for flooding, was closed for days after it sustained water damage and lost thousands of dollars in groceries after torrential rains inundated the region and caused widespread flooding.