An executive from Whole Foods Market spent Wednesday scouting possible sites where the high-end grocer would open its third store in the Nashville region.

Norah Smith, a vice president of real estate at Whole Foods, checked out possible locations with principals of the Nashville real estate brokerage firm Rudd Seeley Wallis LLC, according to multiple real estate sources. Messages to Smith and principals of Rudd Seeley Wallis were not returned.

Whole Foods (Nasdaq: WFM) has two stores in Middle Tennessee. One is located at 4021 Hillsboro Pike, in the affluent retail hub of Green Hills. The other is in Cool Springs, anchoring the upscale Southside at McEwen shopping center.

The Green Hills store opened about seven years ago. The Cool Springs store opened four years ago.

It's no surprise Whole Foods, which is headquartered in Austin, is evaluating its Nashville options. There are a pack of grocers vying to expand in this market, including Publix, The Fresh Market (Nasdaq: TFM), Sprouts and others.

A group of potential developments in downtown and Midtown could be in the mix for Whole Foods. For instance, Boyle Investment Co. is targeting a grocery store for its Capitol View project, on the north end of downtown.

The earmarked space in Boyle's plans matches that of a normal grocery store footprint, roughly 40,000 square feet or so. Other projects likely will offer a smaller space, which might lead Whole Foods to open one of its smaller "urban" stores.

Among the other developments or developers targeting a grocery store:

• the Aertson Midtown, a $100 million mixed-use project near Vanderbilt's campus

• the prospective buyers of the downtown campus of LifeWay Christian Resources

• an apartment-and-retail combo planned at the Franklin Pike site of the former Colonial bakery

• a mixed-use project at the Music Row roundabout in Midtown. As we've reported, those developers are in talks with Publix.

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