Features

Safeway Holds Meeting to Decide Fate of College Ave. Store

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Thursday September 11, 2008 - 09:47:00 AM

Safeway will hold a series of public meetings starting this week at Oakland’s Claremont Middle School in an effort to come up with a different design for remodeling its College Avenue store. 

The first of six meetings was held Wednesday. The next will be Sept. 22. 

The national grocery chain put together a group who will participate in discussions about the new plans after local merchants and neighbors vociferously opposed the corporation’s proposal to expand the less-than-25,000-square-foot 1960s-era grocery store by three times.  

About 300 people packed the Peralta Elementary School in June to hear Safeway’s plans, and more than 70 people spoke in opposition, expressing fear that “big box” development would ruin the quiet ambiance of the corner at Claremont and College avenues. 

Others viewed the project as a threat to existing businesses, saying that what Safeway calls a “lifestyle” store, with a bakery, pharmacy and bigger meat and produce sections, would destroy the essence of the neighborhood.  

Safeway’s real estate developer, Todd Paradis, pointed out that the existing Safeway lacked a number of important departments, including a full-service meat counter, an extensive organic produce section and a flower shop. 

According to an e-mail sent out by Elisabeth Jewel of Aroner, Jewel & Ellis Partners—the consultants, whose primary partners include former Assemblymember Dion Aroner, hired by Safeway for community outreach about the expansion projects—the members of the “stakeholders’ working group” have agreed to meet regularly to share their “expertise, perspective and opinions in creating a new store.” 

The e-mail stated that the meeting would be facilitated with “the goal of discovering common ground and consensus on hard issues such as the size, scale, and design of a new store and possibly ground floor retail space.” 

The meetings will be open to the public and minutes will be posted on www.safewayoncollege.com. 

Pamela Hopkins, managing partner of the Berkeley-based ENACT Global Consulting business, will facilitate the meetings of the stakeholders’ group—made up of representatives from the Rockridge Community Planning Council, the Claremont Elmwood Neighborhood Association, the Rockridge District Association, Concerned Neighbors of College Avenue Safeway, College Avenue merchants who have stores right across the street from Safeway and neighbors whose properties abut Safeway. Safeway representatives will also be participating. 

Susan Shawl and Nancy McKay of Concerned Neighbors, the group formed to oppose Safeway’s expansion plans, said they hoped the process would result in something positive. 

“We would like Safeway to modify its plan to be in line with what the neighbors want. We are hoping for a major renovation of the existing store instead of a 75,000-square-foot development,” she said. “Every question would be answered if they did a major renovation rather than expand.” 

Shawl added that some of the stakeholders would like to negotiate the meeting dates proposed by Safeway. 

“They [Safeway] set up the schedule without talking to anyone,” she said. “Some of the meetings are on Mondays and some on Wednesdays and some allow only nine days in-between, which leaves us no time to report back to the members in our organization.” 

Safeway was scheduled to submit an application for the proposed project to the Oakland Planning Department at the end of July, but postponed its plans in order to address community concerns. 

Calls to Safeway’s spokesperson Esperanza Greenwood were not returned by the paper’s deadline. 

 

Meeting dates: Sept. 22, Oct. 1, 13 and 22, and Nov. 3, 7-9 p.m. at the Claremont Middle School, 5750 College Ave., Oakland. Parking is available on the playground off of Miles Avenue.