Safeway

By Terry D. Nagel

We need a new grocery store that meets the needs of residents, not just Safeway's needs

There's more at stake here than a large store footprint. Cities that allow big-box stores in their downtown areas pay a human price. These types of structures degrade the sense of community by displacing smaller businesses, discouraging foot traffic, introducing homogenized corporate designs and creating unattractive "seas" of cars in their parking lots.

Burlingame needs a new Safeway that serves the needs of both Safeway and the residents of Burlingame. Safeway could be building that new store RIGHT NOW if the City Council had given it the strong message that the Planning Commission delivered with its 6-1 vote: We need a better-designed store surrounded by street-friendly retail that would genuinely enhance the neighborhoods as well as the existing businesses. Instead, the council has dithered by forming a subcommittee that has brought the project to a virtual standstill.

The facts about Safeway are:

• The proposed big-box store would have the same amount of shelf space (and product selection) as the current 25,000 square foot Safeway. Safeway wants the extra square footage to create a "shopping experience"--a 40-seat deli, sushi bar and other accoutrements that add up to additional dollars for Safeway and draw customers away from other Burlingame Avenue merchants. One planning commissioner found virtually the same amount of product selection at larger Safeways in the area as at the current Safeway.

• The plan is nearly identical to one Safeway introduced more than six years ago. It is a suburban shopping mall blueprint that cuts off access to other Burlingame businesses along two, fortress-like walls spanning several hundred feet along Primrose Road and Howard.

• Safeway has punished Burlingame residents by threatening not to upgrade the store until 2015 and by cutting off access to parking spaces in the former Wells Fargo building on Primrose.

• Lots of Burlingame residents think the Safeway controversy boils down to a choice between a big store or no Safeway. But Safeway would never leave Burlingame. Its store at El Camino Real and Howard Avenue is extremely profitable.

• Safeway has deliberately let its current store get run down to foster customer dissatisfaction.

• Safeway has employed the same tactics to discourage community participation in other cities. In St. Helena, residents succeeded in getting a store more in keeping with their surrounding community, and Safeway officials eventually complimented them on their dedication to their community.