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Politics & Government

Scores Line Up for Safeway Opening

It wasn't a bad day for a new grocery store: A throng of shoppers lined up early before Thursday's "Grand Opening" to be the first to check out the 65,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art Safeway store next to the El Cerrito del Norte BART station.

Safeway opened its new "Lifestyle" store next to the El Cerrito del Norte BART station Thursday with a ribbon-cutting attended by the Mayor Ann Cheng, Councilman Bill Jones, city staff, Safeway executives — and scores of waiting shoppers.

Store manager Karl Moore opened the door at 3:55 p.m., and a line that started forming much earlier filed through a gauntlet of applauding Safeway employees. Some shook hands, others laughed and joked. Several entered with shopping carts, while others pushed kids in strollers.

“They’re lined up all the way to the BART station,” one worker exclaimed to colleagues as the customers poured in for 15 minutes and scattered to various balloon-festooned departments and stations offering free samples.

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Twenty minutes later Mayor Cheng, store manager Moore and others kept speeches short before performing the ritual ribbon-cutting just inside an exit to a patio positioned to attract pedestrians and cyclists using the Ohlone Greenway beneath the BART tracks behind the store.

The ceremonies also included Safeway’s donation of $2,500 to the Parks & Recreation Department; the funds will be used for senior and youth programs.

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The corporation also will be donating $500,000 toward renovating the Ohlone Greenway when BART rebuilds it as part of a seismic upgrade of the elevated tracks, Cheng announced.

The site renovation also includes construction of an adjacent retail center for six stores fronting on San Pablo Avenue. Safeway has a website inviting small businesses to lease space. Two of the spaces have signs saying Pet Food Express and SuperCuts are “coming soon,” and others have “For lease" signs.

Another facet of the redevelopment plan was to deed a part of the Safeway parcel, about an acre in size, at the corner San Pablo Avenue and Hill Street to the city to develop in support of its goal of transit-oriented development.

It has not yet been deeded to the city and currently is part of the Safeway parking lot. But the pending statewide closure of local redevelopment agencies as part of adoption of the state budget has thrown all such projects into limbo while a lawsuit by the California Redevelopment Association and League of California Cities to block dismantling of the program makes its way through the courts.

“We don’t want them to deed it to us (at this point), because we might lose it,” Economic Development Manager Lori Treviño told Patch. “We’ve asked them to keep it. We don’t know what is going to happen.”

City officials learned two hours before the grand opening that the state Supreme Court put a stay on implementation of the RDA dismantling plan Thursday, freezing action throughout the state.

Once the city gained ownership of the parcel, Safeway Corp. would have the first right to buy it back.

The 65,000-square-foot regional store, transformed from an empty Target store, replaces two long-standing Safeway stores elsewhere on San Pablo Avenue, one at Moeser Avenue and the other at Macdonald Avenue in Richmond. Thursday was the last day they were open.

In another effect of the state shutdown of redevelopment agencies, the city agency has halted its search for a developer to oversee redesign of the Moeser Avenue Shopping Center, which contained the now closed Safeway. The El Cerrito Redevelopment Agency had designated the entire center a Master Development Area to try to avoid piecemeal development or having the store remain empty for years.

For now the city must leave the task of finding a new tenant up to Safeway and the property owner, J&P Properties of Fair Oaks, CA.

But Safeway Real Estate Manager Todd Paradis told Patch, “Whatever happens to RDAs (redevelopment agencies), Safeway expects the city to be seated at the table” in the selection of a replacement tenant.

Clarification: The original version of this article said that hundreds of shoppers lined up for the Safeway opening and attended the ribbon-cutting. We're not sure whether the number was in the "hundreds." The story has been revised.

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