Trader Joe's is the Loch Ness monster, Bigfoot and magical unicorns of supermarket retail, as least when it comes to downtown. The LA Downtown News offers up a giant cocktease of rumors, gossip, hearsay, and innuendo about a possible Trader Joe's downtown, only to ultimately crush our hopes. Its like they're bloggers or something. To wit:
· A rumor on blogdowntown.com that TJ officials had "surveyed a parking lot on the southeast corner of Second and Broadway."
· A "longtime downtown player" eats his lunch at the Palm and intimates that a "planned residential project northwest of Staples Center may have a contract with Trader Joe's, but that the project is tied up in litigation and it could be years before the store opens."
· Then Variety's report in March 2006 that Trader Joe's has no plans to open downtown in the next two years.
But the Downtown News, even when faced with company denials, just refuses to believe. If wishes were horses, the Downtown News is saddling up right now. Don't despair, downtowners. You may not get your TJs anytime soon, but you will get your charred Ralphs soon enough, and possibly even a Whole Foods somewhere in the Grand Ave project by 2011.
Searching for Trader Joe's [LA Downtown News]