Beverly's Sinking Whole Foods Market Deemed 'Safe' For Customers

BEVERLY, MA — The Beverly Whole Foods Market that has become the "celebrity sinking store" amid media reports of cracking walls and sloped floors is safe for customers and staff to enter, according to letters submitted to the city from store management and owners' engineers.

Beverly Mayor Mike Cahill said he and Beverly Inspectional Services Director Jim Butler required that they show the Brimbal Avenue building is safe for the staff and the public after reports that showed carriages sliding across the sloped floors and the cracks in the foundation.

Whole Foods has filed a lawsuit against builder and landlord CEA Group accusing it of negligence in the construction of the building that the franchise said is slowly sinking into the ground.

"After speaking and meeting on site with the owners and their engineers, as well as the Whole Foods regional manager, the owners' engineers submitted letters to the city stating that the building is safe for public occupancy," Cahill said in a message to the community on Monday night.

The store, which has been open about six years, has structural and foundation issues, according to Whole Foods in the lawsuit. The company says repairs could cost them millions of dollars and require a long closure, according to NBC Boston.

(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. X/Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)