Whole Foods building under construction at the corner of Third Avenue and Third Street by the Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn, NY. The oldest concrete structure in the city at left is part of the complex, built by the Coignet Stone Company to showcase its pioneering method of using Béton Coignet, or reinforced concrete, a technique swiped from the French. But by 1882, the company had closed and the building entered a long period of switching hands. Located at the corner of Third Street and Third Avenue by the Gowanus Canal, Whole Foods purchased the land surrounding the building in 2005 for just under $5 million as part of its plans to transform that corner of Gowanus into a new grocery store (which eventually opened in 2013). It became a New York City landmark in 2006, and Whole Foods carried out a restoration of the dilapidated building, which included revamping its crumbling facade and treating it with limewash.