Align Real Estate to Redevelop San Francisco Safeway Stores

Align Real Estate is steering its shopping cart to Safeway with multifamily redevelopment plans at three San Francisco grocery store sites, with plans that would inject hundreds of affordable units into the market.

The local developer is targeting a Safeway location in Bernal Heights for demolition, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

The company plans to tear down the 32,000-square-foot store at 3350 Mission Street and build a six-story, 370-unit apartment building spanning the whole 2.2-acre site. Safeway will survive, however, as plans call for a 56,000-square-foot replacement Safeway store on the ground floor.

Align is moving fast to redevelop Safeway stores across the city.

It also plans to redevelop the Safeway at 850 La Playa Street in the Outer Richmond District into 526 rental units across two eight-story buildings. Similar to the Bernal Heights plan, it would raze the 37,000-square-foot Safeway and replace it with housing anchored by a 59,000-square-foot grocery store on the ground floor.

Align shared its first Safeway redevelopment proposal last month. That project would turn a recently closed Safeway store in the Fillmore District at 1335 Webster Street into 1,800 apartments. The real estate firm has a deal to buy the property from Safeway.

The Bernal Heights proposal could run into opposition from neighborhood residents. Two affordable housing projects near the Safeway site are under development but faced pushback from neighbors along the way.

Align can skirt the 40-foot height limit for a building that rises 75 feet and skip over a lengthy local public review process by setting aside a portion of the units as affordable housing.

Of the 370 proposed units, 51 would be set aside as income-restricted for low-income and very-low-income households. The plan would add more than seven times as many affordable homes as have been built in Bernal Heights over the past two decades.

— Chris Malone Méndez