Photo courtesy The Heights Life

In a press release and message posted to their company blog today, Richmond-based organic grocer Ellwood Thompson’s announced that their planned expansion to the DCUSA development in Columbia Heights is on hold, seemingly indefinitely.

Ellwood Thompson’s Local Market announced today that they have delayed their plans for expansion to the Washington D.C.. Citing the slowing economy, the company will not open a store at the DCUSA project this fall as originally planned. “We are disappointed that we can’t move ahead with our plans at this time” stated Rick Hood, owner of the company. “We believe that DCUSA in Columbia Heights is an excellent location choice and are eager to serve this community, which is a perfect fit for our products and philosophy. However, with this delay we are acting prudently to keep our company sound during these difficult times for retailers. We continue to work with DCUSA on a timetable to locate there”.

We’re still waiting to hear back from company spokesperson Cyndi Watkins with some more details on what happened. Signs have been up in the windows of the section of the DCUSA building intended for the grocery store for months, but almost no visible work has been completed in building out the space.

UPDATE: We were able to chat briefly with Watkins about the fate of the Columbia Heights store. Bottom line: Ellwood Thompson’s still has a lease with DCUSA, which the company can’t pull out of, so the space will remain empty for the time being while they continue to pay the rent.

“We just don’t have the funds to do the construction right now,” she said. No new timeline is in place for when the grocer might be able to resume its plans for the store: all they are able to say now is that it definitely won’t be opening this fall.

“It’s honestly dependent on our sales picking up,” Watkins said, noting that the Richmond store is barely breaking even right now. “The company is really exited about moving in to [D.C.], but we’ve got to look after the employees that we’ve got here.”