[Editor's Note: Albany resident Eric Chou, a site and facilities planner, shared these thoughts as Safeway prepared for a study session Tuesday before the Planning & Zoning Commission. The session has been postponed, but Safeway remains on the agenda as per common city practice. Chou has created several PDFs as illustrations for his column. They are attached at right.]

I should state from the get-go that I fully support the desire for a newer, better Safeway on Solano.  The current Safeway is outdated, unattractive and, frankly, not a very pleasant place to shop. However, upon seeing the latest Safeway design that was presented to the city in March, I still find myself unconvinced by Safeway’s latest proposal.

Some basic questions are worth raising for Safeway’s consideration:

1. How will a Safeway of this size feel in this neighborhood and does it really need to be this big?
2. Are there more efficient approaches towards customer entry and service access?
3. Does their parking solution really work?
4. Will a second floor supermarket really work?

To address the first question, most would agree that Solano Avenue’s charm lies in its tree-lined sidewalks of family-friendly shops, businesses and restaurants, so many of which we know and love. 

Based on the drawings that Safeway presented, I simply wonder how this new Safeway integrates with these surroundings.  

Perhaps Safeway and their architects can help clarify this for us per the photomontages I generated? The views up and down Solano, and, of equal if not greater importance, the views up Curtis and Neilson with all the existing shops, homes and trees shown in place and not cropped or airbrushed away, from a pedestrian’s perspective would be welcome and worth depicting. 

In one small piece of context that they did provide in their Study Session design materials, and a notable red flag, the house immediately neighboring the Safeway on Curtis Street is completely dwarfed by the new supermarket and parking structure’s looming mass. 

Per the current design, this façade is more than 50 feet above street level, a substantial height. Perhaps a more gradual setback could be considered per the attached building profile alternatives which would be less imposing on the residential neighborhood. 

Another question is if a bigger Safeway is really better? Given the dramatic increase in building footprint, will there be sufficient customer demand to sustain such a large store? 

Being so close to Monterey Market and two Trader Joe’s, my family only goes to Safeway for basic party staples and kitchen commodities. If Safeway could meet or surpass Trader Joe’s combination of price, selection and quality, that might help draw potential customers to its aisles. 

Rather than just increasing store size to satisfy some abstract sales per square foot metric, Safeway’s greater challenge is to not only provide more products, but also higher quality and higher value products.

Safeway’s decision to engage Solano Avenue with new sidewalk storefronts and businesses is commendable, but I wonder if the front door is in the right location?  Why not leverage the popularity of Sunny Side Café and Fonda across the street on Curtis and locate the entry there? 

This would allow truck loading to occur along the sidewalk on the corner of Neilson, across from Bank of America, similar to the approach that Andronico’s takes further up the street.

The current design also triples the volume of parking while reducing by half the number of entry/exit points, which conjures only one troublesome vision —bottlenecks. Why not have two additional entry points further downhill directly into the lower parking level in order to reduce congestion?

As a final concern, will customers be willing to take an elevator up to a second floor supermarket? While the downtown Oakland Whole Foods also has parking located on a separate level from the market, its elevator is wholly integrated as part of a dramatic entry experience (flower shop, special sale items, customer service area immediately accessed from the main entry, café seating at the far end of hall, self-serve stations in between), and also benefits from customers following gravity’s natural flow down to the store. 

If Safeway does pursue this current design approach, the top floor should be spectacular. To that end, why aren’t there windows on the top story, particularly along the façade that faces the bay? 

If Safeway is going to the trouble of building upward, why not showcase views to the bay, the hills and the street below as part of the shopping experience? While this requires attention to the visual privacy of its neighbors, why not take advantage of the views that the market will surely enjoy? 

All of these questions I raise as a concerned member of the community. I am fully prepared to champion a design that truly graces its surroundings, from all directions. To be clear, a better Safeway is sorely needed.

With just a little more thought, I believe that Albany can have a Safeway of which we would all be confident would succeed on all fronts, from business strategy to operational logistics to neighborhood aesthetics.

Have an idea for a guest column or letter to the editor? Email emilier@patch.com.