If Safeway were genuinely interested in the historical aspects of Burlingame, they would be pursuing a store that fit the scale and character of the existing streets, not just in terms of appliqu , but in real substance.
Safeway has every opportunity to build a moderate size store surrounded by street-friendly retail that would genuinely enhance the neighborhoods as well as the existing businesses.
Instead, Safeway has chosen to propose a wall between itself and the community in order to keep its customers within its doors. It has effectively made an assault on our community and has suggested that painting some cute representation of Disneyland on the side of its building will somehow appease our sentimental hearts. Now it offers additional tokens of condescending sentimentality suggesting that our interests are childish in nature and not worthy of serious consideration.
Safeway has rolled its eyes at our concerns since we first voiced them on Planning Commission, and at every opportunity since.
And now the Council begins to posture, acting like they will get something from the mighty Safeway for the peasants so that we won't mind so much having our downtown bulldozed. A token arch, perhaps some street trees, maybe a bench or two.
This is not unlike 301 Airport, remember. The final deal included the equivalent of $1 million in token gestures for the City, to be extracted from a project that would cost $150 million to construct. The developer did not even flinch because he knew that $20 million worth of gestures would not have hurt the bottom line. And remember, the 301 deal was closed and ready to go if the economy had not sidetracked the plans. I recall specifically that Rosalie was so "proud" that she and the Council had landed a misplaced, poorly designed daycare in return for letting the developer have almost everything they wanted. The Council tried to make it look like they had won while the developer was laughing all the way to the bank.
Safeway is laughing now at this quaint little hamlet that is poised to give away the store for an arch. Consideration of such a proposal is an embarrassment and an insult to those of us who care about Burlingame.
Safeway is the guest here. Safeway is asking to make a profit at our expense. We don't need a bigger Safeway. Safeway needs a bigger Safeway. We need a healthy town with a healthy main street where our kids can walk and our families can shop.
And be careful: bulk and mass are not the only issues. The problem is scale, orientation and access to the rest of downtown.
Safeway should be required to face it's store toward the rest of our business district. It should be required to create a functioning street scape with accessible storefronts. It should be required to provide real working windows that look into real businesses. It should be required to provide a full streetscape of small business store fronts for lease to independent businesses with no access directly into the Safeway store from those businesses.
The way it should work:
The City provides a working street for businesses to thrive. It provides sidewalks, lighting, amenities and an environment that accepts a wide range of business types. This creates a "habitat" that is friendly to many business owners and many customers. It serves a wide range of ages and income levels.
Business locate on those streets and attract customers, who in turn shop at other businesses. A spirit of community with competition arises, keeping viable business afloat while seeing less viable business go by the wayside.
The street changes over the years. Business come and go. Families grow and children who once played on the street become customers and even business owners. Dreams are invented and realized in the context of a friendly, familiar community.
Because the businesses are all somewhat dependent on each other, they all share a responsibility to keep the street alive. Every 25 or 50 feet of store front has an obligation to provide an interesting and necessary service, product or visual attraction. Participation by every 25 or 50 feet is necessary to make the whole street work. Every customer who strolls, lingers, window shops, day dreams or otherwise has a pleasant experience on the street, will come back and will begin to identify that street with home, community, neighborhood.
When a big box retailer puts up 300 feet of wall with no windows, no entries and no available service, the street is cheated. All the other businesses on that street are robbed of their opportunity for patronage by the customers who would have strolled that 300 feet.
The existing businesses have done their part to attract people to the street, but the 300 foot wall has not done its part. The big box retailer has now disturbed the "habitat" that nurtures community businesses and has created a habitat that is unfriendly to pedestrians. It creates a habitat that will drive people away from the pedestrian part of the street, and the business located there.
The retailer proposes to glue some junk on that wall to make it interesting, but that does not work. Real users of real streets want real attractions. They don't want to stroll along a picture of downtown, they want real downtown. They aren't interested in a fake habitat. They don't want a street scape that belongs in a zoo, they want the real thing.
In this scenario, Safeway should be seen as robbing something from the community, not giving something back. Our community has real streets, We view it as a basic "right" to walk along an active, live street and patronize our favorite businesses.
Safeway does not have the right to dismantle our streets. They may have the right to build a big box, they may have the right to snow the Council into allowing them to face E$l Camino and steal city parking. But they do not have a right to come out into the street and destroy a pattern that is important to the citizens.
The streets do not belong to Safeway. The sidewalk does not belong to Safeway. Hell, the City Council does not belong to Safeway. It all belongs to us, the citizens of Burlingame. We should be outraged that the Council is not capable of understanding this and we should do everything possible to change the Council.
– Written by Martin