New Safeway Keeps Trucks Off Side Streets, On Solano

A new may be one step closer to reality after a with store officials, architects and members of the public. 

Store officials said the new design put a premium on keeping delivery trucks off neighborhood streets, with a ramp directly from Solano into a two-story parking garage with an underground loading area. (The development includes two stories above grade at Solano, with a third level underground.)

The new store, reps said, will bring an additional $304,400 to city coffers, with increased property and sales tax revenue. 

The store, designed by Lowney Architecture, will also bring 53 new jobs to Albany, in addition to the 65 employee positions it currently has. 

Store reps said the plans likely will take another two years to make their way through the city's approval process, with construction lasting another 18 months. 

COMMUNITY BENEFITS INCLUDED IN PLANS

The store will feature a range of public benefits, said Safeway reps, such as eco-friendly construction, retail shops on Solano, landscaping that will include street trees and planter boxes, a bulb-out for AC Transit, a 10-foot setback from the street, and parking that will be available to Solano Avenue merchants. 

The Safeway store, on the structure's top level, will include an outdoor seating area at Neilson Street that overlooks Solano Avenue and has a view to the Berkeley hills.

The entire store, including the outdoor area, will feature free wireless internet access for computer and smartphone users.

Store officials said they hope to fulfill the public art requirement (necessitated by Albany's public art ordinance) by designing the entire area around the store as the site's "art element."

Several community members in attendance said they were excited by the design and impressed by the changes. (Plans were .)

About 40 to 50 community members, including Albany's city manager, , attended Wednesday's meeting. See our .

LOADING AND PARKING

There will be three scheduled deliveries to the store per day by big-rig trucks, but planners said they made sure to limit the impact on nearby neighbors by building a ramp from Solano, near Curtis Street, to the lower story of a two-level parking garage. The loading zone is on the bottom floor.

Customers driving into the lot will access parking via the same entrance from Solano. 

The two parking levels will include space for 197 stalls, with 106 on the upper floor (adjacent to Solano Avenue), and 91 on the floor beneath it. 

Customers will access the store via elevators, as well as stairs and an escalator accompanied by a "cartavator" for shopping carts. 

The store is slated to span three stories (one underground and two above it) and 53,000 square feet, with about 38,000 of that designated as "customer space." (By comparison, the El Cerrito Safeway is about 65,000 square feet.)

The store will reach from 37 to 40 feet tall on Solano, and 27 to 50 feet in the back of the property. A fenced-off bioswale area behind the parking garage, along with a soundwall, will help keep the noise level down for neighbors.

Store reps said they planned to submit their application to the city of Albany this week. (See the PDF attached to this story for more information.)

ARCHITECTURAL DETAILS

Architect Ken Lowney said it was a challenge to design around competing slopes on Solano, Curtis and Neilson to get trucks into the site in a way that would work for the neighborhood.

"It really tested our intelligence and pushed our computer programs to the limit," he said. "We wanted to make it seamless and easy to get from the car to the store, and back, from the store to the car, with your groceries."

One member of the audience asked about other sorts of delivery trucks, and where they would wait if the loading area was full. Lowney said all trucks would enter the garage and do their unloading from there, rather than idling in the street.

He said, as per the design, trucks would likely enter the store from the east, heading downhill from Berkeley. 

Some community members asked about bike parking; though the store includes a bike rack alongside the entrance into the parking area, some noted that bikes with trailers likely wouldn't fit in the proposed space. Lowney said this kind of bike parking would need to happen on the sidewalk in front of the store.

Lowney described a range of windows, vertical bamboo gardens, green screens and open-air construction in the parking lot to maximize light and ventilation throughout the site.

He said the store would feature resin wood panels, painted stucco and ceramic tile, along with other materials, to help the store fit in with the surrounding architecture. He described the style as "a more abstract contextualism."

Lowney said there will be space for up to four other retail shops on Solano Avenue as part of the development: a corner lot at Curtis, and a triangular space just east of the parking entrance, which could fit one to three storefronts.

He said construction hours would be set to "respect the sleeping hours of the community," and that the store, once open, would continue to be a 24-hour operation.

A LONG ROAD

Todd Paradis, real estate manager for Safeway, said the project has been under consideration for about 10 years. The Shattuck Avenue Safeway in Berkeley, he noted, has been in development for about the same amount of time, and is slated to open this summer. 

Paradis said there were times when the challenges of the project stumped designers.

"It's one very unique piece of land," he said, noting the varying slopes on Solano and the side streets, the proximity of residential lots, and the fact that the site "has more depth than it has frontage.... At times it was a project we weren't sure we could design.... It's had more designs than any other project I've worked on, by far."

Paradis said the new store will continue to carry the staples that can be found at any Safeway, but that it will also feature items and develop departments in response to community interest. The store will feature a coffee shop and a pharmacy (which will result in the closure of further west on Solano). He said there will likely be much more space dedicated to produce, as well as a full "from-scratch" bakery. 

He said customers could take a look at the to get a sense of what a new Safeway on Solano might offer.

What do you think about the new design? Tell us in the comments.

Click the "Keep me posted" button below this story for updates when we cover this topic. Read more on Albany Patch . See our .

Safeway has created a website for the project, which can be found at http://safewayonsolano.com.

If there's something in this article you think , or if something else is amiss, call editor Emilie Raguso at 510-459-8325 or email her at albany@patch.com.