Ashley Ford
Sun
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Capers Community Markets plans to open its fourth store in the South Cambie area. The natural-foods seller will take up 20,000 square feet of space in the new $50 million Cressy condominium development at 16th and Cambie Street. “The Olive,” which begins construction in July, will feature 103 condos and six cityhomes and is breaking new development ground in that every home will have a true “gourmet kitchen.” Prices start at $259,900 and the project is scheduled for completion late next year. “The urban gourmet-living concept we are creating is why Capers is the perfect fit as the development is for people who love to prepare and cook food,” Cressy vice-president Hani Lamman said. “Capers completes the urban-gourmet concept the development embodies and puts a gourmet food market under the same roof as gourmet lovers. Capers is not just another food store. It is organic and has a reputation for integrity and for quality,” he added. Capers newest store will be the largest in the stable and be environmentally friendly in design and construction. Capers cooks up a new condo complex for the urban gourmet ‘Olive’ building will feature units with luxury kitchens and house an organic foods store on ground floor Vancouver Sun May 7, 2004
Living above the shop is about to take on a fresh meaning in Vancouver. Capers Community Markets announced Thursday its fourth and largest natural and organic foods store will occupy the ground floor of a novel condo complex designed for “urban gourmet” living. If the marketing marriage between retailer and developer pays off, the greens and granola set will be moving uptown and up-market. Every suite in the $50-million “olive” building, at the corner of Cambie and 16th, will feature a “gourmet” kitchen with built-in wall ovens and microwaves in trendy stainless steel, gas cooktops favoured by the finest chefs, and optional glass-fronted wine fridges for guests to admire their host’s extensive selection of expensive bottles. “This is the kind of kitchen where dinner guests deliberately come early — to hang out drinking wine while watching the host crank out home-made pasta, crack fresh crab and put together a 20-ingredient salad dressing from scratch,” publicist Pamela Groberman said. Prices at “olive” range from $259,900 for a 522 square-foot condo to $600,000 for a 1,200 square foot townhouse. In smaller units, bedrooms are being slimmed down to accommodate the all-important kitchens by Kari Henshaw and Allisa Karvonen of Vancouver‘s Insight Design. “This is the kind of luxury kitchen that turns a dinner party into a kitchen party,” said Hani Lammam, vice-president of Cressey, one of Vancouver‘s oldest and largest developers. “Capers completes the urban gourmet living concept — gourmet kitchens, gourmet people, and a gourmet food market, all under the same roof.” Capers, bouncing back from a hepatitis A scare two years ago that led to eight cases of infected customers, says the new store represents the first phase of a planned doubling of its presence in the Vancouver area over the next five years. Demand for organic and natural products continues to grow in excess of 25 per cent a year, Capers marketing manager Aron Bjornson said in a release. According to market research conducted by Synovate for the Certified Organic Associations of B.C., 53 per cent of residents in Greater Vancouver have purchased some organic food in the past year. The 20,000-square-foot new store, expected to open late next year, will offer a greater range of fresh, locally produced organic and all-natural products with an easy-to-shop layout and high levels of customer service, Bjornson said. A ” European market shopping experience” will include destination departments that feature cheeses from around the world, fresh baked artisan breads, a fresh seafood marketplace, and a holistic health and nutrition centre. It will be the first new Capers store since 1995 when the company opened its third location on Robson Street. Capers was founded 10 years earlier in West Vancouver by healthy foods activist Russell Precious. Wild Oats Markets, the American health store chain which acquired the company in the late ’90s, has pledged to preserve the Capers name. © The Vancouver Sun 2004 |
