| News - Friday, November 11, 2011
Safeway to open its new Pleasanton store Friday
Gas station, McDonald's also in center's plans
by Jeb Bing
Safeway will open its new Pleasanton Lifestyle supermarket at Bernal and Valley avenues at 8 a.m. next Friday.
The grand opening will follow an invitation-only pre-opening ceremony inside the new store Thursday afternoon, which will also be a benefit for Open Heart Kitchen. Local representatives, including Alameda County Supervisor Nate Miley and Pleasanton Vice Mayor Cheryl Cook-Kallio, will join Safeway President and CEO Steven A. Burd at the Thursday reception.
The Amador Valley High School band also will perform at the reception.
This will be Pleasanton's second Safeway store with the older market at Valley Avenue and Santa Rita Road remaining open to continue serving that part of Pleasanton, company officials said.
Other shops and buildings nearing completion on the new site will include a restaurant, small retail stores, two banks and a hairstyling salon.
A new McDonald's fast food restaurant, which would be Pleasanton's fourth, also is part of the plans, although that application has yet to work its way through the city's planning process.
Chipotle, a Mexican grill popular in neighboring cities, is not on the list of possible eateries, however, according to Donald R. Wright, senior vice president of Real Estate & Engineering for Safeway Inc., although there have been requests for it.
However, Wright told a real estate marketing group recently, the company may still add a retail gas station. The station was on early plans but then scuttled after some opposition developed. Rather than delay the building process, Wright said the station plans were shelved but may be brought back by popular demand.
"People tell us that they want a gas station at the new store," he said. "There's room for it and we may seek to build one there later."
The new 58,000-square-foot store Lifestyle supermarket will be almost twice as large as Pleasanton's older store. Its opening comes 70 years after Safeway opened its first Pleasanton store on Main Street in February 1941.
It also will be the newest of 270 Safeway stores in the company's Northern California division, which, like its corporate parent Safeway Inc., is headquartered in Pleasanton.
Company representatives said that Safeway's Lifestyle-designated supermarkets have expanded meats, seafood, bakery and wine departments, featuring a large selection of organic products and a sandwich bar and customer seating area. More than 200 employees will staff the new store.
Facing Valley Avenue, the store backs onto the northbound I-680 off-ramp and is part of a 12-1/2 acre site that Safeway is purchasing from South Bay Construction, which continues to own the rest of the 39-acre site. Although the site is zoned for office buildings, it is also being considered for residential units, including 10 acres that could be earmarked for affordable housing along the southeast side of I-680.
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