Safeway Redevelopment in SF’s Marina District Hits Blowback

Align Real Estate’s plan to turn three Safeway sites across San Francisco into housing is facing early opposition.

The local firm filed plans to develop a 25-story waterfront apartment complex on the site of a grocery store at 15 Marina Boulevard, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. But the project is already facing pushback from Mayor Daniel Lurie and ridicule from Marina district residents.

Lurie’s Family Zoning plan was approved this week, but Align filed its plans before that, using lenient state height guidelines for the 790-unit proposal. Lurie’s plan allows heights of 140 to 350 feet in districts where it wants to encourage housing density but limits other areas to 65 to 85 feet.

Align’s timing caught the attention of the mayor’s office.

“A developer trying to sneak in a project before our plan takes effect is a complete violation of the spirit of that work,” Charles Lutvak, a spokesperson for Lurie, said. “Our administration will stand up firmly to developers that game the system, and we will pull every lever we can to make this a project that works for this neighborhood and our city.”

Align’s plan for the 2.6-acre site includes 86 affordable units. The project would consist of two towers connected by a U-shaped center, rising 250 feet at its highest. It’s a decrease in height from Align’s original plans, which Lurie also opposed.

The development would reserve 63,000 square feet for a replacement Safeway, an increase from the existing store’s 40,520 square feet. The development would have 473 residential parking spaces and 164 for the grocery store.

Lurie isn’t the only one who’s opposed to the project; the neighborhood’s supervisor, Stephen Sherrill, also intends to fight it.

“I won’t let it go unchallenged,” Sherrill told the outlet. “Our neighborhoods deserve stability and real rules — not to be blindsided by cartoonish mega-projects trying to exploit loopholes in state law.”

While the developer is not currently bound by the city’s height and density limits at the site, the Family Zoning plan will target the Marina location in an attempt to shave down the project.

Align’s other proposals call for similar transformation of Safeway sites into mixed-use towers. Those plans, revealed over the past month, include more than 1,800 units at 1335 Webster Street in the Fillmore District, 526 units for the Safeway at 850 La Playa Street in the Outer Richmond and 370 units at the Safeway property at 3350 Mission Street in Bernal Heights.

— Chris Malone Méndez