Safeway Redo Update. March 21, 2011.

2011-03-21 Safeway representative Avis Black sought community feelings about a replacing the Bradlee Safeway store with a new lifestyle store like those in Georgetown and at Wilston. Lee Quill is the architect and Duncan Blair—who is also a SHA resident—is the attorney. The current store has 45,000 sq. ft., and Safeway wants to increase it to about 65,000 sq. ft. (around 44 percent more). The proposed new store would be a large rectangle in podium design where parking is at ground level and the store is above the parking lot—one level with a 10 foot ceiling. The store itself would be only one level, customers would park under it and then use stairs, escalators, and elevators to access it. The new structure would not exceed 50 feet tall (lower than the tower on the medical building next door). The zoning on the parcel would have to be doubled from the current 1992 zoning in order to build this bigger, denser store. Safeway is also proposing moving the delivery truck access from the King Street side to the West Braddock Road side.

Safeway’s proposed store is designed to offer a place to both shop and eat. It would have roomier isles with more produce and new features, such as a sit down restaurant, a Starbucks, perhaps a pizza oven or sushi bar, and restrooms for customers. It would have the same number of full size parking spaces as it has today. It may have a separate small retail store at ground level for something like a dry cleaners (between the new Safeway and the gas station). Construction would take between a year and a year and a half, during which time, prescriptions would be available nearby and employees would be assigned positions in other Safeway stores.

Proposed Sidewalk on King Street Across from Bradlee Shopping Center