Burlingame Safeway construction to begin

Plans for a 45,600-square-foot 24-hour grocery store were unanimously approved by the City Council in February. At this point, the older store and surrounding shops at 1420 and 1450 Howard Ave. were demolished creating a dirt-filled area. Next month, construction workers are expected to begin building and the entire project is expected to be completed by fall 2011. But first, a new sign will be erected including the name of and contact information for the neighborhood liaison Fred Ponce.

"I’m there as a resource for questions or issues with construction,” said Ponce, noting there was already one issue with noise that was dealt with promptly.

Getting information out to the public seems to be a high priority with this project. Ponce is the go-to person for information but there will be other ways soon. A portion of the Burlingame city website, www.burlingame.org/safeway, will be dedicated to periodic updates about construction. It will also be home to a live webcam. The webcam was already set up but, being that it’s solar powered and there has been little sun lately, there have been some technical issues, said Ponce.

There will also be a listserv, or electronic mailing list, sending out information related to traffic. Although road closures are not part of the plan, Ponce explained there may be times when lane diversions are needed. The listserv will help get the word about when these situations come up.

Lastly, people can simply visit the site. Approval was recently granted to put a sign up including Ponce’s name, phone number and an image of the site plan. This board will also have a spot where periodic updates will be included.

These steps are part of a long process to open the grocery store in the coming fall.

The grocery store at the prime downtown corner of Howard Avenue and El Camino Real will be joined by a separate mixed-use building, pedestrian walkways, many trees and a water fountain corner feature welcoming visitors to Howard Avenue.

The mixed-use building opposite Safeway will feature 12,428 square feet of retail on the ground floor and 5,460 square feet of retail above. The former 6,554-square-foot Wells Fargo building will be refurbished. Pedestrian walkways will connect the site to the rest of downtown. These buildings should open sooner, possibly late spring or early summer, than Safeway, said Ponce. A new Walgreens replacing the one at Howard Avenue and Primrose Road is already open at the corner of Burlingame Avenue and El Camino Real.

Planning Manager Maureen Brooks was excited to see the progress so far.

Getting to this point really was a collaborative effort that took years to accomplish.

Plans to rebuild Safeway were first submitted in 1997 and met with concerns that it was not pedestrian friendly. A reworked plan — including a 50,000-square-foot grocery store, 12,000-square-foot Walgreens and a number of shops placed on the corner of Howard Avenue and Primrose Road — debuted the following year resulting in a petition against the proposal boasting over 900 signatures. Community meetings led to no resolution and Safeway eventually pulled the plans.

A new plan for a 66,900-square-foot combined Walgreens and Safeway emerged in 2001 but was rejected by the City Council in 2004. In 2007, Burlingame created the Safeway working group charged with creating design criteria for a new store tailored to the city.

Heather Murtagh can be reached by e-mail: heather@smdailyjournal.com or by phone: (650) 344-5200 ext. 105.