News

Thirteen years after the city of Burlingame first entertained proposals for a new Safeway, plans for a 45,600-square-foot 24-hour grocery store were unanimously approved by the City Council last night. 

Countless public meetings, community input, environmental documents and scotched proposals ended with a new plan that nearly everyone could appreciate, and even like. 

“This is a drastic improvement,” Councilwoman Ann Keighran said compared to the most recent proposal. “It’s definitely in a much more loving environment. This is due to a different process. And it may have taken a while, but I think it was definitely worth the wait to have a project that is going to be beneficial to this community.”

The grocery store at the prime downtown corner of Howard Avenue and El Camino Real will be joined by a separate mixed-use building, pedestrian walkways, many trees and a water fountain corner feature welcoming visitors to Howard Avenue. Monday’s approval means work can soon begin on the store with a 6,190-square-foot mezzanine sitting at 1420 to 1450 Howard Ave. Questions remained regarding the fountain at the entryway of Howard Avenue and El Camino Real, but the council decided to move the proposal forward with a little tweaking. Safeway officials previously said construction could begin within one week of receiving building permits. 

The fountain was updated to include upward lighting, a quarried stone lower wall for sitting but also covered in vines to screen parking. Residents were aware of the effort put into the corner but still felt it did not match the area. One suggestion was to remove the fountain; another was simply to add more trees. Three large evergreen trees were proposed for behind the fountain already. 

Vice Mayor Terry Nagel suggested putting the corner entryway to a smaller community group to be tweaked without holding up the larger project. 

“This is a beginning of a big entryway,” she said. 

Councilman Jerry Deal and Keighran felt the details had been vetted by so many, it was not worth spending an additional 120 days. Both were fine with moving a boulder commemorating the location of the historic DeAnza Camp into the fountain, rather than outside of it, as a compromise suggested previously by two residents. 

Councilman Michael Brownrigg conceded there were three people willing to move forward so he removed his proposed condition of pulling the corner proposal for further review. 

The project also includes a mixed-use building opposite Safeway with 12,428 square feet of retail on the ground floor and 5,460 square feet of retail above. The existing 6,554-square-foot Wells Fargo building will be refurbished. Pedestrian walkways will connect the site to the rest of downtown. Approval was also given for the mitigated negative declaration and conditional use permits for its height, 24-hour operation, the sale of alcoholic beverages and take-out services. The commission also signed off on rezoning the area.

Plans continued to get greener, a move Mayor Cathy Baylock praised. 

Safeway Real Estate Manager Deb Karbo went over a number of areas that previously caused concern for the Planning Commission such as the corner of Howard Avenue and El Camino Real, changes to the trash enclosure, the back of the building and the rooftop parking area. 

Now the trash enclosure has a roof, doors and ficus trees to add as a green screen. The same green screen, on a larger scale, was proposed for the back of the building against city parking lot K. Adding lilac vines to green screens down the center of the rooftop parking area was suggested as a way to break up the open area and add shade. Karbo warned the suggestion comes with the caveat that it is a last-minute proposal that can only be approved if it does not take away from the building’s structure and a watering method can be found. Other planters are self-watering. 

Keighran asked that greenery be added to the loading dock. She did not specify what kind of foliage, although Karbo added it will most likely be ficus. 

Resident Charles Voltz, who served on the Safeway Working Group, noted the marked difference between recent meetings regarding Safeway compared to those in 2004, where tension was heavily apparent. He applauded the community for getting to such a positive place and noted the success brings hope for other large projects to come. 

Getting to this point really was a collaborative effort that took years to accomplish. 

Plans to rebuild Safeway were first submitted in 1997 and met with concerns that it was not pedestrian friendly. A reworked plan — including a 50,000-square-foot grocery store, 12,000-square-foot Walgreens and three to four shops to be on the corner of Howard Avenue and Primrose Road — debuted the following year resulting in a petition against the proposal boasting over 900 signatures. Community meetings led to no resolution and Safeway eventually pulled the plans.

A new plan for a 66,900-square-foot combined Walgreens and Safeway emerged in 2001 but was rejected by the City Council in 2004. In 2007, Burlingame created the Safeway working group charged with creating design criteria for a new store tailored to the city. Many lauded the new process as the reason for what one resident described as last night’s “love fest.”