By Thomas K. Pendergast

Plans to replace the Safeway supermarket near the beach at 850 La Playa St. with a couple of eight-story buildings – including 526 new residential units – have been submitted to the San Francisco Planning Department.

The proposed mixed-use building on more than three acres of lot space would offer the replacement grocery store at ground level as well as underground parking. The plans include a loading dock area just off 48th Avenue and adjacent to the new grocery store.

Development plans filed with the City claim 266 motor vehicle parking spaces will be provided for tenants and another 150 for retail parking, for a total of 416 spaces between the two. There will be underground parking at the basement level and above that will be two other levels, both of which include parking.

It will also provide 253 spaces for bicycle parking.

At this point, plans for the project include 160 studio apartments, 236 one-bedroom apartments, 76 two-bedroom apartments and 54 three-bedroom apartments.

The developers will use the 1979 California State Density Bonus plan to offer 68 of these units as “affordable,” while the other 458 will be offered at market rate.

Using the California State Density Bonus Law (SDBL) definition, “affordable” generally means they will be offered at 80% of the Area Median Income (AMI) as calculated by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

In San Francisco, 100% AMI works out to $97,000 annually for a single person, $110,850 for two people, $124,700 for three and $138,550 for a four-person household.

The building height will max out at 85 feet. The ground floor is designed to include approximately 58,600 square feet of retail space facing Fulton Street along with a residential lobby and support functions.

The design is by the architecture firm Steinberg Hart and features a third-floor pedestrian walkway on the third level connecting 48th Avenue and La Playa Street.

In their preliminary plan, the developers state that the western edge of the Outer Richmond neighborhood’s “characteristics” played a critical role in the design of the proposed development.

“The buildings take careful consideration of each street frontage to create multiple points of orientation at an urban scale,” the developers said. “In the site’s current condition as a centrally located grocery store surrounded by surface parking, the team has imagined a multi-family residential development anchored by the repositioned grocery store.

“The overall massing strategy is to create two buildings with a mid-block break. Taking inspiration from the natural erosion that occurs along the water’s edge, on each corner of the site the buildings either steps back or steps down to create multiple gateways that work with the scale of the buildings on La Playa Street and 48th Avenue. Along Fulton, the massing opens up to the park to carry this green belt to the interior. Creating courtyards in the north-south direction across both buildings on the site is similar to the neighborhood block patterns of rear yards.”

The designers are planning a structure that takes into consideration the homes across La Playa Street and the surrounding environment.

“The carves in the massing along La Playa Street are designed to connect to the open spaces established by the western buildings across the street. On 48th Avenue, these carves break down the scale of the buildings,” the developers said. “Also, townhomes with stoops and upper-level soffits (the underside of an architectural structure) bring a protected scale to pedestrians and connect to the homes across the street.

“In choosing the materials and colors to define the exterior facades, the team researched the environment around the site. The sand texture of the beach and the pastel tones of the neighborhood informed the resolution of the fiber cement panels. The ripple in the sand created by the western wind translated to the vertically grooved panels. The sun shimmering through the fog is highlighted through the vibrant color on the window frames and horizontal floor datums. In bringing all these design parameters together into the project, the team has created a development tailored to the site.”

Safeway Incorporated will be using Align Real Estate to handle the property, which is the same firm handling the redevelopment of the properties in the Fillmore and Marina districts where other Safeway markets will also be replaced.

Albertsons Companies is the parent company of Safeway Inc. and will be filing the paperwork with the City through Dominick’s Finer Foods LLC.

The new structure’s envelope is expected to contain a total of 793,400 gross square feet (GSF), including 533,800 GSF of residential space, 58,600 GSF of retail space and 193,000 (GSF) of basement parking.

The location around this Safeway has, like many other places in the City with a lot of foot and car traffic, had its share of troubles.

Early this past November, five people were injured in a shooting near there, after a fight broke out, sending one man to the hospital with life-threatening injuries and four juveniles with non-life-threatening injuries.

With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, it became the site of a large encampment of homeless people next to the wall along 48th Avenue, as neighbors complained and tensions rose between them.

Prior to 2017 recycling services were offered in the parking lot, until Safeway management decided it was not worth the trouble and closed it after receiving many complaints from the neighbors.