South Windsor planning officials recently approved a pair of efforts to revamp retail plazas – one by adding apartments, the other by adding a grocery store.

Meeting minutes from the South Windsor Planning Board’s June 8 meeting indicate the board gave its approval to a modified general plan of development for the 15-year-old Evergreen Walk lifestyle center.

The plan will be to replace three retail units totaling 53,000 square feet of space with a 50,000-square-foot retail building that the Hartford Courant reports will be filled with a Whole Foods grocery store. The Courant reports the development is currently around 40 percent vacant, and a grocery store’s foot traffic could help boost sales at the businesses which remain.

Retail property valuations generally suffered during the pandemic, with the exception of grocery stores. For example, a three-state portfolio of Stop & Shop-anchored properties, including ones in Willimantic, Cromwell and Seymour, sold for $295 million earlier this year. And grocery stores have emerged as a key anchor in several proposed developments this year, including in Newington and elsewhere in South Windsor.

Further north, a zoning change to a 61,000-square-foot, Geissler’s Supermarket-anchored shopping plaza at 1017 Sullivan Ave. in South Windsor was also approved at last week’s meeting. The move will enable the addition of 125 apartments and the renovation of the existing retail space. Ten percent of units in the development will be designated as affordable units.

Both projects face further permitting hurdles before construction can begin.