19 November 2025/SF News/Jay Barmann (SFist.com)
SF-based developer Align Real Estate does, in fact, have a larger strategy to redevelop Safeway properties in the city and turn them into multi-story residential complexes with retail on the ground floor, including replacement Safeway stores.
With Tuesday’s announcement that Align, the same developer behind the project to redevelop the Fillmore Safeway property, was working to potentially redevelop the Ocean Beach Safeway in similar fashion, we surmised there could be a larger strategy at play. And we wondered aloud if the Castro Safeway and shopping center with its sprawling parking lot might also be on the list.
And while we still don’t know if it is, the Chronicle reports today that a third Safeway store location, the Mission/Bernal store at 3350 Mission Street, is also in Align’s sights. The developer has plans in the works to redevelop the 2.2-acre site — which extends between Mission Street and San Jose Avenue — into a six-story, 370-unit residential complex, with a much larger Safeway store in its base.
According to the preliminary plan, the units will be rentals, with a mix of studios, 1-, 2-, and 3-bedroom units, with 51 units designated affordable. And the current 32,000-square-foot Safeway will be replaced with a 56,000-square-foot Safeway — though, as in the case of the Ocean Beach property, the neighborhood will be without a grocery store during demolition and construction, which could take a couple of years.
A Safeway exec struck a very different tune than in the case of the Fillmore store, which the company closed in part due to rampant theft, well ahead of the development schedule at that property — with plans not even yet approved. The company has committed to returning to this property after construction is complete.
Kelly Mullin, president of Northern California operations for parent company Albertsons, gave a statement to the Chronicle acknowledging this store’s “long-standing role as a critical neighborhood anchor” in an area where “many families depend” on it. The Fillmore neighborhood likely feels the same, and while Align has committed to putting a smaller grocery tenant into that planned development, it does not sound like Safeway will be that tenant.
This project still could face pushback — especially because of its size. As at the Fillmore site, Align is hoping to take advantage of the state’s density bonus program to achieve that six-story, 370-unit count, but this will make it the tallest thing in the immediate neighborhood, save for the CPMC hospital a few blocks away. Most of the blocks surrounding the Bernal Safeway, which is also at the edge of Noe Valley, are low-slung residences that are two and three stories.
Align promised when they unveiled the Fillmore plans last week that they had more projects to announce — with a prospective new-unit total of 3,500. With today’s announcement, it brings the total to 2,746 units (1,800 at the Fillmore site, 526 at Ocean Beach, 370 in Bernal). That leaves one or two more projects to announce, possibly at other Safeway sites, with a total of 750 more units.
It should be noted that none of these projects yet have their entitlements from the city, and plans may change.
