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By Michael Bazeley
OaklandNews

Safeway is about to unveil a second set of plans for the demolition and rebuilding of a larger College Avenue store - a proposal that’s already agitated neighbors worried about increased traffic and the effect on local merchants.

The Pleasanton-based supermarket chain will post its revised plans online at safewayoncollege.com on June 12th, a Safeway representative said. A community meeting will likely follow on June 19th, co-hosted by the Rockridge Community Planning Council and Councilwoman Jane Brunner’s office, said Elisabeth Jewel, of Aroner, Jewel & Ellis Partners, Safeway’s public relations consultants.

“What we present will reflect the direction and the scale that we want to go,” Jewell said.

The North Oakland Safeway on College Avenue is something of anomaly - a national chain supermarket tucked in a cozy residential and small business area with lots of foot traffic.

Neighbors worry about local merchants

Now, the Pleasanton-based chain wants to expand the 44-year-old store, and that has some neighbors worried.

Susan Shawl and Nancy McKay are two neighbors who worry about a significantly larger supermarket squeezing out smaller local merchants and wreaking havoc on an already congested stretch of College Avenue. They have been leafleting the neighborhood alerting people to the pending changes.

“Our main concern is the quaint area between Claremont and Alcatraz,” McKay said. “We have a butcher, a bakery, a flower market, a pharmacy, a wine shop. All of these establishments could predatorily be put out by business by Safeway….They’re a big corporation led by profits.”

Neighbors concerned about the expansion have already achieved one victory. The company’s original plans, presented to the public last year and later submitted to the city, were shelved after mixed community reaction. Under the original plans, Safeway would have doubled the size of its current store to about 60,000 square feet, including expanding onto the site of the current Union 76 gas station next door. That rebuilt store would have significantly changed the character of that strip of College Avenue, creating a taller street-side facade that would extend nearly to the intersection of Claremont and College.

Safeway representatives said those plans were “preliminary” and created largely as a starting point for discussions with city planners. Jewel said the revised plans will be “different, a lot of different,” though she would not elaborate.

“We definitely want to work with the community where it’s feasible,” said Esperanza Greenwood, Northern California director of public affairs for the Safeway. “Pleasing everyone all the time is not necessarily doable. But we’re working hard to incorporate the comments and community feedback into the design - recognizing that we are a supermarket company.”

Current store dates to 1960s

The current store, shoveled into the triangle where Claremont and College avenues intersect, opened in 1964. Although popular in the neighborhood, it looks and feels dated. Hard against the Berkeley border, it abuts houses at the rear, and neighbors have complained of noise and odors from its loading dock.  A 76 gas station occupies the front corner of the property.

Safeway’s plans are to demolish the current store, rebuilding it from the ground up as one of its “lifestyle” markets. The centerpiece of a multi-billion capital improvement campaign, lifestyle stores have a warmer, more modern, upscale feel. Typically, they include larger flower departments, a wider variety of produce, new lighting (think Whole Foods), meat counters and expanded deli sections.

Safeway completed 253 “lifestyle” remodels in 2007, and 276 the year before, according to its annual report. The company expects to have 90 percent of its stores in the “lifestyle” format by the end of 2009. The company’s first remodel in Oakland was of the Grand Lake Safeway in November 2006. That remodel includes an expanded floral department, a new produce section with more organic foods, and a bigger wine and liquor department.

(Click images to enlarge.)

Shawl and McKay agree that the Rockridge store needs upgrading.

“It’s in desperate need of remodeling,” McKay said. “We wouldn’t mind to see it remodeled. But we don’t want all of the other negative aspects of the expansion.”

McKay said Safeway’s expanded offerings would compete directly with local merchants. And the increased traffic would put a huge burden on the already busy College Avenue.

“We already have tremendous traffic problems in Rockridge,” she said.

“Our fear is that Safeway doesn’t give a damn about our neighborhood other than profits,” Shawl said. “They truly don’t care how they impact the neighborhood.”

But Greenwood, the Safeway spokesperson, said the company wants its store to fit into the neighborhood. “Yes, the Rockridge community is unique, and we are sensitive to that, and we want to put in place a store that is sensitive and that enhances that,” she said. “Rockridge is unique, and because of that, this design will reflect that….I would ask that everyone wait and keep and open mind.”

Neighbors are mixed on the proposal. Writing to the Claremont Elmwood Neighborhood Association newsletter, Robin Dean said: “Remodeling Safeway is a fantastic idea; all power to them! If they don’t remain competitive with fancy stores like Trader Joe’s, they will go out of business here, and we’ll lose another grocery store.”

Stuart Flashman, chair of the RCPC, said the organization did not have an official position on the store plans yet. But he added, “I was not impressed with the initial plans as far as listening to the community. But I’m impressed that they are changing it.”

Restrictive zoning

That area of College Avenue currently falls under a type of zoning called C-31, created to preserve neighborhood shopping districts. It sets height and square-foot restrictions that would normally not acommodate a supermarket like Safeway. But the current Safeway building was grandfathered in under that zoning. If the building is torn down and replaced, Safeway would likely need to ask for a variance or a rezoning, Flashman said.

Safeway has not yet filed formal plans with the city’s planning department. Last year’s plans were a “pre-application.”  Jewell said formal plans would be filed shortly after the June 19th meeting. The company has already been talking with the city about traffic issues, Safeway and city officials said.

Once a formal plan is submitted, an official environmental review process will begin, likely focusing on traffic impacts to the surrounding neighborhood and the effects of digging out the fuel tanks from the 76 gas station, said Peterson Vollman, the Oakland Planning Department case manager assigned to the project.

“Those would be the big issues,” he said.