Marina Safeway Project Adds More Units, Lowers Height

Align Real Estate is making its contentious Marina Safeway redevelopment a little shorter and a little denser, revising its proposal as it tries to steer one of San Francisco’s most closely watched housing projects through city approval.

The San Francisco-based developer submitted updated plans that would reduce the project’s tallest towers from 25 and 22 stories to 22 and 18 stories while increasing the residential count from 790 to 848 units, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. The redesign trims roughly 40 feet from the east tower and 23 feet from the west tower with the entire development at 15 Marina Boulevard spanning 989,500 square feet.

Align co-founder Dave Balducci told the Chronicle that the revisions respond to Planning Department feedback and improve the project’s efficiency by squeezing in 58 additional apartments while reducing amenity space, optimizing floor plans and shrinking nonresidential uses on the ground floor. The replacement grocery store would expand slightly to roughly 67,200 square feet.

The proposal remains a flashpoint in San Francisco’s housing debate, facing pushback from the mayor as well as local residents. Mayor Daniel Lurie opposed the original 25-story version despite state law potentially allowing a significantly taller project, and his office is still not prepared to support the revised proposal, Lurie spokesperson Charles Lutvak told the Chronicle.

The Planning Department is continuing to review the development under Assembly Bill 2011, the state law that streamlines approvals for qualifying housing projects on commercially zoned land.

Supervisor Stephen Sherrill argued in a letter to Lurie last month that the Marina Safeway site does not qualify for AB 2011 because nearby parks and open space prevent it from meeting the law’s “urban uses” requirement. Planning officials have rejected that interpretation so far. Align warned that reversing the city’s eligibility determination could expose San Francisco to “significant” liability under the state Housing Accountability Act, the firm wrote in its application.

Align is also seeking a larger density bonus for the site, increasing its request from a 39 percent bonus to 49 percent after revising the unit mix to include more family-sized apartments. The affordable housing commitment remains unchanged at 86 below-market-rate units.

The Marina proposal is one piece of Align’s broader strategy to redevelop aging Safeway properties across the Bay Area. The firm has proposed thousands of apartments on six grocery store sites, including more than 1,800 homes at San Francisco’s former Fillmore Safeway and a 415-unit senior housing project in Oakland’s Rockridge neighborhood, both of which have drawn neighborhood opposition over scale and community impacts.

— Chris Malone Méndez