The mock-up shows a curved, U-shaped tower reaching 297 feet at points, with tiered terraces and a ground-floor grocery store. There are glass windows fronting the building, which is topped by a green wall and large deck with a smattering of trees. The colossus faces a cove filled with floating docks for boats. These are all parts of a redesigned Marina District Safeway that was proposed late last year. 

The renderings are among the latest of five, massive mixed-use Safeway redevelopments trying to take root in the Bay Area.

The possibility of these projects coming to fruition is causing anxiety among residents, who are concerned the proposals are outsized and out of step with their surrounding neighborhoods. One local journalist called the Marina project “inconceivable even to sci-fi futurists.” Mayor Daniel Lurie and city supervisors have spoken out against the development as well.

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Cars are parked outside the Safeway in San Francisco’s Marina neighborhood. 

These sentiments were palpable on April 1 when a couple dozen residents lined the sidewalk in front of the comparatively quaint Marina Safeway’s parking lot to protest the proposal to level the 67-year-old grocery store and build the 25-story behemoth, which would graze the state’s height limit. 

Prominent local developer Align Real Estate is sponsoring the redevelopment. Through a partnership with Safeway, it aims to bring 790 apartments, retail and an underground parking garage to the affluent waterfront neighborhood. The project recently cleared an important hurdle when the city deemed it eligible for streamlined approval amid a statewide housing affordability crisis. The city has to make a final decision on the development by August.

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