By Linda Taaffe

Los Altos is one step closer to adding a sixth major grocery store to its inventory. The Los Altos City Council Aug. 24 approved final design plans for Whole Foods Market without any apparent opposition from a single neighbor.

The organic food supermarket is scheduled to open in a 54,125-square-foot building with basement parking at 4800 El Camino Real, adjacent to the See’s Candy property near Showers Drive. The property was the former site of an architectural firm and a furniture store. It has been vacant for several years. A housing project was slated for the property at one time.

The project includes special “food” elevators that employees will use to transport shoppers’ items from the main level of the store to a pickup area in the underground parking area.

Noise and loss of trees were the only negative impacts identified in the project’s environmental study.

Developers agreed to replace trees and to place air conditioning and garage exhaust vents away from the rear property line in order to mitigate both impacts.

Plans to develop the site for the market have been in the works for the past year, though the company did not publicize the project until last spring. The company has inked property lease deals to open stores at seven new sites in the United States, including the Los Altos store.

The Texas-based food company has stores in Palo Alto and Cupertino as well as 154 other locations in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom.

The company has earned the reputation of supporting organic farming by offering locally grown produce from small food artisans dedicated to sustainable agriculture.

Whole Foods announced record earnings for the second quarter of this year. Sales for the 12-week quarter rose 12 percent to $902 million, according to company reports.

Sand Hill Property Company, the developers who built Rambus and the Marriott project on El Camino Real, are building the store.