Pullman 'renaissance' picks up steam as Whole Foods breaks ground

The economic "renaissance" that has fought crime with jobs in the Far South Side's Pullman neighborhood picked up steam Tuesday.

Whole Foods broke ground on a 150,000-square-foot distribution center on a site at 720 E. 111th St. prepared for development with help from an $8.4 million tax increment financing subsidy.

Chicago's gain was Munster, Indiana's, loss. It will put 150 people to work serving 70 Whole Foods stores in the Canadian province of Ontario and eight Midwest U.S. states: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska and Wisconsin.

The Whole Foods center is the latest in a $225 million parade of public and private projects that have transformed Pullman.

The renaissance started with construction of a Wal-Mart Supercenter that ended a 6-year-long battle over the world's largest retailer's $1 billion Chicago expansion.

It picked up steam with President Barack Obama's decision to designate Pullman as a national monument during the middle of a heated 2015 mayoral campaign. The momentum continued with the opening of Method Products, the Far South Side neighborhood's first manufacturing plant in 30 years, topped by Gotham Greens' massive rooftop greenhouse.

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