Outer Richmond Safeway site could become 500-unit housing project
The Safeway on La Playa could be replaced by more than 500 homes and a bigger market, but the Outer Richmond is split over traffic, parking and a grocery gap during construction.
The Safeway at 850 La Playa Street could become one of the Outer Richmond’s biggest housing projects, bringing more than 500 rental homes and a larger grocery store to a 3.3-acre site that has anchored the neighborhood since 1971. For many residents, the question is not whether the corner needs reinvestment, but whether the tradeoff is worth the strain on traffic, parking and daily shopping.
The latest version of the plan, advanced by Safeway’s parent company, Albertsons Companies, and Align Real Estate, calls for two eight-story buildings and roughly 520 to 526 units, depending on the filing. The structure would stand about 85 feet tall and include a much larger retail component than the current 37,422-square-foot store. Earlier plans described about 68 affordable homes; newer filings increased the affordable share, a change that housing advocates say makes the project more responsive to San Francisco’s shortage.
Safeway has said the La Playa store would close temporarily during construction, with employees reassigned to other locations in the meantime before the market reopens with a larger footprint and expanded offerings. That temporary shutdown has become one of the most immediate concerns in the Outer Richmond, where the Safeway serves a wide stretch of the west side near Ocean Beach, Golden Gate Park and the Fulton Street corridor. Shoppers interviewed at the site said the store is a daily necessity, and losing it even for a period would force people to drive farther for groceries.
Others see the project differently. Some neighbors said the site looks tired and could handle a more modern building, while one resident praised the architecture as stylish. Another worried that the added housing would bring more cars to an already busy stretch of La Playa Street and deepen the pressure on parking in a district built mostly on lower-rise blocks.
A volunteer organizer with Grow the Richmond said the project answers a real housing shortage and noted that the developer has increased the number of homes and affordable homes compared with earlier versions. The companies behind the plan have said it would help working families, seniors and young people live and work in the neighborhood, rather than being pushed farther from the city’s job centers.
San Francisco Planning has said the application is still under review and has not been approved. That leaves the project in an early but consequential stage, with the next decisions likely to determine whether one of the Outer Richmond’s most recognizable retail sites becomes a new housing block or remains a one-story supermarket facing a much smaller future.
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