Some "interesting" information in this article which is posted in its entirety. There was much discussion at Monday's council meeting where Safeway was given plenty of "direction" – the mantra that Safeway used last time:

Again with the Safeway by Jon Mays (Daily Journal)
For more than 20 years, the city of Burlingame has tried to build a new Safeway at the corner of Primrose Road and Howard Avenue. The current store is about 25,000 square feet with about 10 aisles of products available for you and I to purchase for a price.
The store, with its aging doors and floors, has stood as a testament to the city's inability to decide what it exactly wants at the spot. It was the stuff of campaign hit pieces when a prior council majority sought a store with a combined Walgreen's and grocery store that would reach the size of perhaps 64,000 square feet. Cries were heard on the street that their rotisserie chicken would put restaurants out of business or their plastic-wrapped flowers would forever kill the down-home mom-and-pop feel of the Avenue.
As if that didn't happen years before.
A group called the Citizens for a Better Burlingame that believed such a large store would be the death of the quaint 'burb came alive to save us from ourselves. Upward and onward the group went, ridding the council of the members who wanted such a building there while asking for ideas on creating housing at the site. Maybe a four-story building might work out well too.
Fast forward approximately three years and we are now at the beginning of the third phase of the Burlingame Process? in which the opinions of the collective Burlingame chattering class is thrown into a hat for discussion by the powers that be.
The latest group thought is that underground parking or rooftop parking may be a poor decision. Underground has nefarious connotations in its subterranean roots in that burglars or other criminals may lurk in the brightly lit places to pounce upon our Mercedes SUV-driving housewives and steal their hard-earned money and fashions without nary a notice of their intentions. Rooftop parking carries less threat of such danger but may mean those toting children may get wet as they are loaded or unloaded into said SUVs. The shame. The horror. The impending sorrow. What will become of the wet children?
Top those concerns with the idea that the city may have to pay for the parking of the new store and that the price tag may reach up to $98,000 each and you have what you call a doggone reason to drop the plan altogether.
Aside from the fact that the discussion of renovating or replacing the Safeway is as old as the days are long.
Everyone can agree the city needs a new store. It's old. It's ugly. It's, well, if you've been in there in the last 10 years, you know of what I speak.
But low and behold, we are entering the third phase of the Burlingame Process.? There was some discussion of including housing at the site, but that fell to the wayside. Now, the main goal seems to be creating a store around 45,000 square feet with parking at-grade, below-grade or on a roof. Any option works for me, but then I don't worry that much about muggings or getting wet when it rains.
At one point, there was discussion of a monster? Safeway with a Walgreen's inside that would swallow the block. Now that it is scaled back and we may just get a new store slightly bigger than the one currently there with aisles of products we may want to buy.
The Burlingame Process? was born out of disappointment with the public planning process. It transmogrified into a plan in which there might be housing, and there might be four to five levels of retail, offices or otherwise. But practicality has set in and what we may now have before us is a scaled-down plan modest in scope and realistic in scale. After 20 years of discussion, it is interesting how we settle on the lowest common denominator one that may have made the most sense in the beginning.
But then really, what fun would that be? Why not complain about the configuration, the placement, the parking, the process, the council or the fact that the salsa is overpriced, the avocados are too green and the grapes may be just a bit too soft?
Or, we can just move forward and agree upon a new modest-sized store that fits downtown and serves the needs of the people who live here? But ain't that crazy?
Jon Mays is the editor in chief of the San Mateo Daily Journal. He can be reached at jon@smdailyjournal.com.

– Written by Fiona