There have been some construction delays at the new Sunflower Farmers Market store at DeVargas Center, but it's moving ahead pretty much as planned and is expected to open the second week of August.

That's Mike Gilliland's prediction, and he should know — Gilliland is the founder of Sunflower, which has 26 stores in New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona and Nevada.

"We are opening eight stores this year and six to eight next year," he said. Four stores are planned for Albuquerque.

A second Santa Fe Sunflower store, in Plaza San Isidro off Zafarano Drive, is under construction and will open in the fourth quarter of 2009.

"We have high hopes for our Santa Fe stores," Gilliland said. "Hopefully the higher wages in Santa Fe (because of the city's mandatory wage of $9.85 per hour) will be offset by a higher volume of sales."

He added: "We're hoping our Santa Fe stores will be some of our best ones."

Among the competitors for Sunflower in Santa Fe will be Trader Joe's, which is perhaps the busiest retail store of any kind in the city.

The Trader Joe's is so busy, in fact, that some Santa Feans have assumed that the company must be planning a second store, perhaps on the fast-growing south side of town.

That may be a possibility, but not within the next two years, Alison Mochizuki, spokesperson for Trader Joe's, said last week. "Albuquerque is scheduled to open a second store this year, but Santa Fe is not in our two-year plan" for a new store.

The second Trader Joe's in Albuquerque will be on the northeast corner of Indian School Road and Uptown Loop, she said.

Sunflower already has interviewed applicants for its new Santa Fe store, which will employ between 90 and
120 people. Gilliland expects them to be very busy once the doors open.

"We've spent a lot of years in Santa Fe," said Gilliland, referring to Wild Oats, a natural-food chain he founded and later sold. "I'm always amazed at how deep the natural-food market is in Santa Fe."

Sunflower competes with larger grocery stores on its produce prices. "Our niche is that we kill everybody with our produce," Gilliland said. "Produce is our big thing, a third of our sales. A survey we took indicated produce is the main reason customers come to our stores."

Sunflower is also competitive with its meat prices and other, private-label items, he said. The new store has a full liquor license and will sell wine, beer and liquor.

Sunflower has been able to continue building stores when other retailers have slowed down or stopped because the company has a rich uncle — Pacific Capital Group, a venture investor firm in La Jolla, Calif.

"They own about one-third" of Sunflower Farmers Market, Gilliland said

The new stores are also financed by cash flow and bank loans, he said.

The Santa Fe Sunflower Farmers Market will occupy about 29,000 square feet at DeVargas Center, with another 10,000 square feet set aside for three additional retail sites.

Mattress Firm will occupy one of the sites, while leases are out for signatures for the other two spaces, said Katy Fitzgerald, spokesperson for DeVargas Center.

Gilliland started Sunflower Farmers Market in 2002, inspired by Henry's Farmers Market, a Southern California chain.

The motto of Sunflower Farmers Market stores is "serious foods at silly prices." Sunflower typically carries a mix of natural and organic foods, along with some conventional products.

"There's a kind of economic angst out there" that will encourage people to look for cheaper alternatives, Gilliland said previously when talking about the success of Sunflower Market. "That's a pretty good time for us."

Gilliland is an experienced operator in the natural-food business. In 1987, he founded Wild Oats Market, at one time a major competitor of Whole Foods.

Wild Oats grew from a single store in Boulder, Colo., to a major chain with 115 stores in the U.S. and Canada.

Wild Oats first opened in Santa Fe in 1991 in a former Safeway store on St. Francis Drive at Cordova Road and later a second store on St. Michael's Drive. Even before that, Gilliland said he had tried to buy The Marketplace, a locally natural food business, but was unsuccessful.

In 2001, Gilliland turned over management of Wild Oats to a turnaround specialist. In 2007 Wild Oats was acquired by Whole Foods Market.