Align Pitches Safeway Housing Redevelopment in San Mateo

Align Real Estate’s Safeway redevelopment push has bled out of San Francisco and into the Peninsula.

On Tuesday, the San Francisco-based firm filed an application to build 396 residential units on a 3-acre site at 1655 South El Camino Real in San Mateo, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. Align’s proposal calls for demolishing the existing Safeway grocery store and replacing it with a seven-story building with housing above a larger Safeway on the ground floor.

Approximately 55 of the proposed units will be income-restricted, which opens the door for Align to take advantage of density bonuses and incentives to build more units in a taller structure than zoning laws typically allow. The developer is using state laws to advance its San Mateo Safeway plan, according to the Chronicle.

The proposal in San Mateo is Align’s latest effort to build housing above Safeway stores in the San Francisco region. The developer is looking to transform four Safeway stores in San Francisco into major residential projects that would create more than 3,500 residences if approved.

Align’s push in San Francisco has been met with criticism, particularly regarding its plan to redevelop a Safeway store in the Marina District into a 25-story, 790-unit housing complex. For that project, Align is utilizing California’s housing streamlining laws, including Senate Bill 330. In doing so, the firm has been able to largely keep formal opposition at bay, by limiting the city’s ability to block or significantly alter the proposal despite pushback from neighbors and Mayor Daniel Lurie.

Align is simultaneously advancing plans to turn Safeway stores in San Francisco’s Fillmore, Bernal Heights and Outer Richmond neighborhoods into mixed-use residential developments. In San Mateo, the developer is also using state laws for its latest Safeway effort.

San Mateo, unlike some of the San Francisco neighborhoods where these Safeway stores are located, has seen an upswing in housing development in recent years.

Transit-oriented infill projects have led much of that development, as the city works toward its state-mandated housing goals of planning for 7,015 new units by 2031. The San Mateo Safeway project will rise roughly half a mile west of the Hayward Park Caltrain station.

San Mateo officials are now reviewing the application, city community development director Zach Dahl told the Chronicle.

“More information will be available once this review is complete and staff has a better understanding of the project,” Dahl said.

— Chris Malone Méndez