Safeway - Part 71 Grand Opening

There's plenty of news coverage about the big Grand Opening of the Safeway that you can read elsewhere, but here are a couple of photos to capture the event for posterity.  First, the Safeway Division manager (Mr. Schroeder, I believe) discussing the project with a chart on how the Working Group evolved the design

And then the actual ribbon cutting which is always fun since the ribbon has already been cut and the big scissors are fake

The eats and drinks at the reception were for real, though.  One news item you won't read elsewhere is that Safeway got its distributors to pour "top shelf" including Cristal, Caymus, Groth Reserve, Gaja, BV De Latour, Mount Veeder, Dominus, etc.  Post event discussions centered on how Mollie's, Lunardi's, Trader Joe's et al will choose to compete.  Mollie's is advertising an impressive sales (save $30 on $150 worth of groceries right before Thanksgiving).  We'll look at some of the other store features later, but here is an obvious Voice favorite from the front corner of the lot.

Comments

[ted]

Shame on the city council for letting safeway get its way in the end...now we see that, after a year, all we can expect is a traffic nightmare in the coming months. the new safeway is not much bigger, doesn't have any new products (just more of them), doeesn't have lower prices....but id does have a horribly designed parking lot, that will have accidents for both cars and pedestrians. the chaos in the lot does mask the fact that there are only 3 handicapped spaces in front at street level.

[Two Cents]

Wow Ted. I had a very different experience yesterday at the new Safeway.

It's WONDERFUL!!! Loved the produce section. Such a vast improvement. I liked everything about it and thought they carried many, many more items. Parking may be a challenge when all the other stores open but I guess we need to wait and see how it goes. I parked on top of the roof with no problem in finding space (this on a Saturday afternoon!). Safeway worked hard to give us a beautiful store and I thank them. After years of shopping in their decrepit old store, we now have a wonderful SUPER market. I am just amazed at how fast it was delivered to us. THANK YOU SAFEWAY.

Ted, be grateful that we live in a lovely city with a very thriving downtown filled with stores and restaurants of every variety. Many cities in CA would love to have what we have.

[Joe]

The old store was 31,000 square feet including the storage basement and the new store is 51,000 square feet including the mezzanine level (office, storage and such). That's a 64.5% increase.

[Bob]

The letter that appeared in the October 18th edition of the SM Daily Journal highlights the deep community involvement that sometimes gets overlooked with projects that are large and that go on for years.

Michelle Durand's column also does a nice job of summarizing the last 10-2 years: http://www.smdailyjournal.com/news_listing.php?type=opinions&eddate=10/18/2011

The Safeway that the community built

Editor,
We did the right thing. That’s how I feel about the Burlingame community, the hundreds of residents who reacted swiftly more than 12 years ago to a proposal by Safeway to build a massive Costco-like, big-box grocery store at the corner of Primrose and Howard.

Today was the unofficial grand opening of a new Safeway store — a store built with valuable input from many sources. During the opening fanfare there were accolades by the mayor for the efforts of the “working group,” her colleagues, the builders and Safeway for making the new store a reality. Certainly, they all deserve our applause.

However, we, the residents of Burlingame, must applaud ourselves for voicing our values early in the process and during the many years the process dragged on. After all, if we did not stand up for our values, there would not have been a “stakeholders group,” nor a council and planning commission that denied the original project.

We explained how we valued pedestrian access to downtown, our heritage trees and a sensible aesthetic. We offered options developed by professionals and we suggested solutions. We emphasized how we wanted to collaborate for our mutual benefit.

Safeway learned that by working together good things can happen and the community learned that they can make a tangible, positive difference by becoming engaged.

Russ Cohen
Burlingame

[Murchison Johnson IV]

Driving down El Camino it becomes evident Burlingames is now a "BIG BOX" store community. Only thing you can see from El Camino is a Walgreens, 60K ft Safeway, ATT Building, and a BevMo. Perfect opening legally for Walmart to move in. With their deep pockets and the worlds best attorneys, Burlingame will have zero chance based on legal precedent on keeping another big box store out.