For many years now it has cost more to buy a house in Burlingame than it would to buy the same house in neighboring communities in San Mateo, Millbrae and Foster City. Indeed, many couples with young families are very conscious of the hefty premium they willingly paid to live in Burlingame. Why is this?
And what has the proposed Safeway got to do with this? If the presence of a big, new Safeway made a difference, then San Mateo, Millbrae and Foster City should have more expensive houses — instead of the opposite being true. Burlingame has consistently been a more desirable community and has thrived — notwithstanding its smaller and older supermarkets (who can forget the old Lucky store?) We've lived with the present Safeway and Walgreens for a long time, and can do so for several more years if necessary because of Safeway's stubborn refusal to listen to the Burlingame community.
The main reason people prefer Burlingame, and are willing to pay for it, is called "quality of life" and "a sense of place." It's because Burlingame feels like, and functions like, a community with small-town qualities. (Not entirely, of course, but way ahead of anything else on the Peninsula.)
We like Burlingame's tree-lined streets and sidewalks where you can still walk or bike to where you want to go. We like to walk down Burlingame Avenue or Broadway and drop in places (a shop, cafe, bookstore, etc.) that we didn't plan to visit, or meet friends that we din't know we would see. (That's part of the serendipity of being part of a genuine community.) We like the fact that downtown Burlingame and Broadway are still pedestrian-friendly where you can park once and visit a number of places — without feeling like you're in an auto-dominated "burb." (Compare Burlingame Plaza with its vast sea of parking — functional but a depressing, visual blight.) We like the fact that our shopping districts still have a good number of local merchants that we get to know and support.
Will the proposed MegaSafeway enhance or diminish Burlingame's small-town qualities? It is a watershed project that threatens to change forever the qualities of downtown Burlingame. Instead of being integrated and part of downtown Burlingame, it creates a giant "island unto itself" that turns its back on the rest of downtown. Its parking arrangement is deliberately designed to "lock in" shoppers to discourage them from walking to Burlingame Avenue or Primrose to visit other merchants. Instead, Safeway wants you to buy its freshly made pizza, bank in its store, buy its "fresh" bakery goods, sit down in its coffee shop, buy its greeting cards, flowers and magazines, rent its videos, buy its take-out food, process your photos at its store, take your dry cleaning to its store, etc., etc. It will be like an indoor mall, but in one big store.
Is there any doubt that this will hurt our independent merchants who now help provide Burlingame with the small-town qualities that we cherish? The question answers itself. But what about the value of competition? Ralf Nielsen speaks for many independent merchants when he says the his Copenhagen Bakery and Cafe can always compete with Safeway on quality, price and service, but he cannot compete with it on convenient parking — especially city-owned public parking that Safeway would, with City approval, relocate to a place directly in front of its proposed MegaStore.
And how many Burlingame Avenue small businesses will be hurt by the parking spillover into downtown Burlingme of Safeway/Walgreens shoppers for whom there is not enough on-site parking during the peak shopping periods on Saturdays? This parking spillover will be even more damaging during the critical shopping period between mid-November and January that many independent merchants depend upon to survive.
Safeway blithely asserts that its MegaStore will bring business to other downtown merchants. Whey should we believe that when Safeway designed its MegaStore to prevent that? In any event, if there was any economic evidence to support Safeway's assertions we would have seen it already. There is none.
If our community cares about the small-town qualities that we now enjoy in Burlingame, our City Council should resolutely reject Safeway's proposed MegaStore — just as the Planning Commission did by a resounding 6 -1 vote. In the recent election, who could miss the fact that not one of the 6 candidates for City Council was willing to endorse the present Safeway proposal? The people of Burlingame sent a loud and clear message at the polls about the proposed Safeway when the candidates opposed to the proposed Safeway got 57% of the vote compared to the 42% for the candidates who first waffled and finally said that they "would negotiate." In a democracy, that's supposed to mean something.
– Written by charles voltz