We need an improved Safeway. The present site is a mess: too much parking, too little landscaping and too little care provided for it, too many bird spikes, and a building of concrete block and covered windows appropriate to a war zone.

That said, I have several comments regarding the proposed replacement. First, it is misleading to describe the parking as underground. Saying the parking is underground implies that the store is at grade. But, in fact, no part of the proposed store is at grade. At the store entrance the parking is at grade, the store is, at that point, an entire story above grade. A grocery store not at grade in a residential neighborhood is not a positive thing. It doesn’t add to the life of the street. It is inconvenient for many people, especially the elderly and disabled. And, for the rest of us, it lacks the immediate accessibility typical of neighborhood stores.

Parking below the store will make it difficult to get back and forth to the store, especially with groceries. Parking isolated on a separate level from the store will seem to be and will be more dangerous than parking in front of the store. Isolated parking is especially undesirable because this Safeway is open 24 hours. I believe that there is not a single supermarket in San Francisco that is both 1) not at grade, and 2) not on the same level as at least some of its parking.

We need an improved Safeway, not a bigger Safeway. In my opinion, the bigger the supermarket, the less friendly the environment and the less convenient the shopping. There is no problem with the size of the current store. Often there are not enough checkers, not because there are too few registers but because there are too many unattended registers.

I agree with Paul that the proposed elevations are a post-modern mishmash (not his words). I hope the architects will take a good look at the beach chalet, which is one of the few buildings in the outer Richmond with a kind of design integrity and dignity, the result of the clear and classical articulation of its parts and a simple balance of the vertical and horizontal elements. I’ve visited the architect’s web site and have seen that they are responsible for the design of a number of projects that are unified and eloquent. That’s what we need.

Finally, one of the problems with the present store is the lack of landscape and the pitiful care given to the little vegetation on the site. It is not evident in the plans and perspective that this will be substantially improved in the new proposal. It needs to be much better than what is there now.

This is not Walnut Creek. I don’t believe my neighbors need or want a mega-store on the beach. And this is not downtown San Francisco. I don’t think we want a supermarket experiment with the store on the second level and the parking in the dark underneath.

I hope Safeway will consider a store of about the same size as the present store, with both the store and the parking on grade like most other neighborhood Safeways (e.g. the Safeway at 7th and Cabrillo). I think it should face Fulton or La Playa or both with parking in front of it. Loading should perhaps be to the north of the store in the middle of the block, with a strip of housing (or landscaping) on Cabrillo.

Good luck with this. I look forward to future public meetings.

The only thing that would make this nicer would be another 20′ of height over the whole block, with residential taking up those two stories.

My one concern re: loading docks is similar to that of the docks at the Safeway at Fisherman’s Wharf…the docks are in the rear of the building and on North Point Street, and when the trucks back up into the bays they tend to block a full lane of the street. I’m hoping that the new plans will take that into consideration so they don’t block part of La Playa in the process.

Which reminds me…my wife and I need to go shopping this weekend. Thanks for the reminder!

A couple retail stores might not make much money but they should add a little retail spice will be nice in the neighborhood. The shops near Freddie’s deli are not very impressive and they are about all we’ve got.