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Safeway may build a new 65,000-square-foot prototype supermarket in Pleasanton, designed to compete with the Whole Foods Market chain of stores that are attracting an increasing number of shoppers looking for healthy foods.
The new store would be built at Valley and Bernal avenues next to I-680 on a 35-acre site owned by South Bay Development Company. South Bay, in turn, would build out the site with seven office buildings south of the new Safeway store and between Valley Avenue and the freeway.
Safeway is also proposing a gas station on Bernal Avenue, just east of the freeway, and South Bay would save space at the corner for retail stores.
Neither Safeway nor South Bay Development would discuss their plans for the site, but the Pleasanton Weekly obtained a copy of the proposed site plan.
Mayor Jennifer Hosterman has met with Scott Trobbe, who heads South Bay, and representatives of South Bay have reviewed the plans with City manager Nelson Fialho and the city planning staff.
Safeway has opened several new supermarkets recently in Dublin and Livermore and is on an aggressive marketing campaign to attract more customers, while also increasing its corporate portfolio.
Besides Wal-Mart which has taken business away from Safeway and other conventional supermarket chains in recent years with its low-priced superstores, Safeway also has been hurt by Whole Foods. That chain’s chief executive John Mackey is engaged in an effort to merge his company with Wild Oats, another key player outside of California that also competes with Safeway, Kroger, Wal-Mart and other traditional supermarkets.
The largest Whole Foods Market in the western U.S. just opened in Cupertino and, like the proposed new Safeway in Pleasanton, is two-to-three times bigger than conventional supermarkets with 68,000-square-feet of specialty foods, including a dine-in Market Bistro, Culinary Center and over 200 seats for indoor/outdoor eating.
Whole Foods is now considered by supermarket analysts as the world’s leading natural and organic foods supermarket and is America’s first national certified organic retailer.
The prototype Safeway store proposed for Pleasanton would follow the same consumer formula, according to those who have discussed the plans with Safeway and South Bay. It would be conveniently located next to the I-680 freeway-Bernal Avenue interchange, an easy stop for commuters and also an easy drive on Valley and Bernal avenues and Foothill Road from most city neighborhoods.
South Bay acquired the 35-acre parcel as part of the purchase of the 510-acre so=called Bernal property by Greenbriar Homes and associates in 2000 from the city of San Francisco. The Greenbriar consortium paid $126 million for the parcel, with South Bay taking 35 acres. At the time, Greenbriar and KB Home received approvals to build 581 homes and apartments on their portion of the property, with an agreement that 318 acres would be given free of charge to the city of Pleasanton. The homes and apartments have been built, with a few still under construction west of the 680 freeway. Pleasanton is just now building three lighted baseball fields on its part of the land.
South Bay, which gained approval at the time to build eight four-story office buildings, was granted an extension several years ago after the office building market collapsed.
The seven office buildings shown on the Master Site Plan for the Pleasanton Gateway Retail/Office Plaza, as the plan is labeled by City Hall, would include four buildings at 93,125 square feet and three smaller ones at the south end of the property at 72,000 square feet.
City Manager Fialho said that the city expects the plans to be formally considered and processed in public hearings early in 2008.
– Jeb Bing
– Jeb Bing