![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/260723-marinasafeway-ng-15-KQED.jpg\")
<\/p>\nMore than 300 residents turned out last week to oppose a plan to replace the Marina District Safeway with two residential towers \u2014 the latest effort to stop or redirect a project the city says qualifies for fast-track approval under state law.<\/p>\n
Jul 27, 2026<\/p>\n
Updated 11:38 am PT<\/p>\n
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A customer walks out of the Safeway location in San Francisco\u2019s Marina District on July 23, 2026. The Safeway at 15 Marina Blvd. is where developer Align Real Estate has proposed 848 apartments. \u00a0(Nina Glick\/KQED)<\/p>\n
Last week, more than 300 people packed into San Francisco\u2019s Fort Mason<\/a> to discuss the future of the grocery store across the street.\u00a0<\/p>\n A developer wants to replace the Marina District Safeway with two residential towers rising more than 250 feet. The project has become a lightning rod in a city struggling to keep up with affordability, demand and the state\u2019s housing mandate and where residents often challenge development in hopes of preserving neighborhood character.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cPeople come here because it\u2019s beautiful and it\u2019s open and has a feeling of expansiveness,\u201d said Erin Roach, president of the Marina Community Association, who helped organize the meeting. \u201cHaving a giant building is going to take that feeling of expansiveness away \u2014 let alone shade the two parks that are on two sides of it.<\/p>\n The town hall was the neighbors\u2019 latest move in a monthslong campaign<\/a> to stop, or at least slow, a project they say is too big and which they don\u2019t believe qualifies for development under state laws created to fast-track housing.\u00a0<\/p>\n Align Real Estate \u2014 the project sponsor filing on behalf of the building\u2019s owner, Albertson\u2019s Companies \u2014 applied in December to demolish the Safeway at 11 and 15 Marina Blvd. and build two sleek glass towers with a capacity of 848 units above a different grocery store. Align and Albertsons have a development partnership with plans to redevelop multiple stores into massive developments across the Bay Area.<\/p>\n On July 14, the developer\u2019s attorneys submitted revised plans they described in a letter as \u201cmodest adjustments that result in a more efficient Project.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The changes lowered the heights of both towers \u2014 while increasing the number of units. The application also includes 86 affordable units. The project has no construction timeline or cost estimate yet, and Align said the Safeway would close during construction with a new store to open in its place.\u00a0<\/p>\n The project uses the state\u2019s \u201cdensity bonus\u201d law<\/a>, which overrides local zoning to allow for taller buildings when developers commit to affordable units. Roach said, even with the latest changes, the building \u201cremains roughly six times taller than anything around it,\u201d leading some residents to oppose the project\u2019s impact on the neighborhood\u2019s scenic views<\/p>\n Now, Roach and a coalition of neighborhood groups are fighting the project\u2019s qualification under AB 2011, a state law that lets housing on commercially zoned land win approval through a ministerial process \u2014 meaning no Planning Commission vote, no Board of Supervisors vote and no environmental review under the California Environmental Quality Act, as long as the projects meet specified affordability, labor, and environmental criteria.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe are not opposed to housing here. We would really like to see housing here,\u201d Roach said. \u201cBut the project that\u2019s being proposed is really difficult for this area of the Marina to handle \u2014 on health and safety reasons.\u201d<\/p>\n Roach said the eastern Marina is built on fill over old wetlands and groundwater, in a liquefaction zone, atop the footprint of a former manufactured gas plant. Drilling to bedrock, she warned, could disturb buried contamination and push polluted groundwater toward neighbors\u2019 homes.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Marina Community Association hired an environmental attorney, then an independent soils expert who, according to Roach, found the area polluted.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWith a project this divisive, the City needs to be extraordinarily clear as to how and why approvals are granted,\u201d Marina District Supervisor Stephen Sherrill, who has opposed the project along with some of his constituents, said in a statement. He added that Thursday\u2019s town hall \u201cis another step toward giving the community this transparency.\u201d<\/p>\n However, the city argues the project is a strong contender for development under the law. In a July 20 letter to Sherrill, Planning Director Sarah Dennis Phillips wrote that the property is not \u201con the Cortese List,\u201d a publicly available and regularly updated list of hazardous waste sites in the state. She wrote that the site is not in an earthquake fault zone or a federally designated flood hazard area.\u00a0<\/p>\n A required assessment identified what the city called a \u201crecognized environmental condition,\u201d and Dennis Phillips wrote that a further endangerment assessment must follow. But that review, she said, happens later, during permitting and construction \u2014 overseen by the health department and the water board \u2014 and is \u201cnot part of the planning approval process under AB 2011.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/260723-marinasafeway-ng-20-KQED.jpg\")
The Safeway location in San Francisco\u2019s Marina District on July 23, 2026.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/260723-marinasafeway-ng-25-KQED.jpg\")
The Safeway location in San Francisco\u2019s Marina District on July 23, 2026.<\/p>\n