Natural foods retailer Whole Foods Market has settled on a location to build a second store in the Pittsburgh region, this time at the Wexford Plaza shopping center on Route 19 in McCandless.

The site choice was confirmed yesterday by an executive with the Austin, Texas, company. "We are excited to open our second Whole Foods Market store in the Pittsburgh area which will be at the Wexford Plaza," said Ken Meyer, regional president, in an e-mailed response to a query. "We hope to open our doors in the second half of 2011."

Earlier this month, the company noted in its fourth-quarter earnings release that it had signed leases for three new stores, including one in the Pittsburgh area. That announcement said the three stores would average 33,000 square feet.

A spokesman said yesterday that the company wouldn't know exact size for the Wexford Plaza location until more details are worked out on that store's layout.

Whole Foods has been considering additional locations in the region since its first store in the market opened in East Liberty in 2002. That location covers 32,500 square feet and has been a big draw for the neighborhood, helping spur other retail development nearby.

If the McCandless project goes through, it would mean the natural foods grocer that had seemed to be concentrating its efforts on the South Hills might end up going to the North Hills first. At one point, the grocer worked out a deal to put a 68,500-square-foot store in Collier but that fell through when the development stalled.

Whole Foods has continued to tinker with the size of new stores and the pace of development, as the recession slowed sales. In the most recent fiscal year, the company reported total sales rose 1 percent to $8 billion but sales in stores open at least a year fell 3.1 percent.

"We believe our sales have stabilized and officially turned the corner," said John Mackey, chairman and CEO, in his discussion of the earnings results. He said after five quarters of year-over-year drops, sales in established stores are up so far in the first quarter of the new fiscal year.

Bruce G. Betty, land use administrator for McCandless, said the township has been talking to representatives of Illinois-based Kimco Realty Corp., which owns the Wexford Plaza strip center, about a plan that would include some demolition at the shopping center. "We have not received any applications," he said.

He said the shopping center sits on the line between Pine and McCandless.

Whole Foods' recent quarterly report showed the average size of stores opened in the last fiscal year was about 53,000 square feet -- a reflection of the chain's move toward larger locations -- but the grocer said it had trimmed the size of two stores now in the development process.

On its Web site, the grocer says a good location for one of its stores would cover 40,000 to 75,000 square feet, have 200,000 or more people within a 20-minute drive, have lots of college-educated residents nearby and plenty of parking.

Meanwhile, a property description of Wexford Plaza on Kimco's Web site describes it as a 134,000-square-foot center with about 1,000 parking spaces. Kimco acquired the center in 2007, and it includes a Rite Aid drugstore, PNC Bank and Loafers Bread among other tenants.

The site description claims the average household income in the surrounding three-mile area is about $133,000, while the median household income is about $100,000. The description claims about 72,000 people live within a five-mile radius.

Calls to Kimco representatives weren't returned by deadline.

At one end of Wexford Plaza, there had been a Festival Foods store but that closed and Levin Furniture recently moved into that site.

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