Name: Opponents upend Whole Foods plan to open S.F. store in Western Addition
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Opponents upend Whole Foods plan to open S.F. store in Western Addition

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This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigateGrocery store Whole Foods’ efforts to open in a retail space that has been empty for three years in San Francisco’s Western Addition may be delayed for years.The Board of Supervisors approved on Tuesday night an appeal by opponents of the proposed store, which will require Whole Foods to undergo environmental review, a process that can take years. The Planning Commission had previously voted to exempt the store from the review, but will have to vote again on the project after it is complete.Supervisors questioned the Planning Commission’s conclusion that the Whole Foods project would have no or little environmental impact, despite more diesel emissions and larger truck and car trips to the store, once it opened. The supervisors called for further study.The decision was met with outcry from many local residents who support the project at the San Francisco City Center, a retail mall in the Anza Vista neighborhood on the edge of the Richmond District near affluent neighborhoods such as Pacific Heights, Presidio Heights and Laurel Heights. The store would have boosted the economy at a time when San Francisco is reeling from the coronavirus pandemic and other retailers are imploding.“We are disappointed the Board of Supervisors voted against our proposal to bring Whole Foods Market to an empty retail space at City Center,” a Whole Foods spokesman said in a statement. “In the middle of a pandemic, the project would have provided 200 new jobs, ... $10 million in construction work and convenient access to high quality food for neighbors.”More for youWhole Foods opponents who filed the appeal include the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 5, and residents Julie Fisher and Tony Vargas. In addition to traffic concerns, they criticized the project because none of Whole Food’s workers are union members, a “grave concern” during the coronavirus pandemic when grocery workers are at high risk of being infected.Some Whole Foods employees earlier this year over safety concerns.All chain stores with 11 or more U.S. locations are required to go through a longer permitting process to operate in most of the city’s neighborhoods. The process can be prolonged if environmental reviews are involved. Recently, Safeway’s division took around three years to get approval to open nearby, despite moving into a long-vacant site that previously held a grocery store.Critics say the system is broken. Anna Marlene Cressman, a Richmond District resident, said the decision was “pure red tape.” She said the time and money that goes into environmental appeals are lengthy and costly, and the appeal was “weaponized and abused” to block Whole Foods from opening.During the public comments portion of the meeting, other residents who lived in the area called in with overwhelming support of Whole Foods. They say the location has sat empty for three years, creating a blight, and the grocer would bring more fresh food options and jobs to the neighborhood. Supporters also pointed out the difficulty of getting tenants as the retail sector continues to struggle — its plight exacerbated by the pandemic.In a letter filed to the Planning Commission this summer, Mark Wolfe, an attorney for the opponents, wrote that the store would create traffic congestion from truck deliveries and construction, leading to an increase in air and noise pollution around the mall location at 2675 Geary Blvd.At the Tuesday meeting, Wolfe said the remedy to the situation was to order an environmental review.Jim Araby, a UFCW representative, said before the meeting that grocery stores are more heavily visited than electronics shops and concerns around air pollution are real.Julie Fisher, a local resident and member of the grocery union, said she welcomes a good source of food for the neighborhood, but not Amazon or Jeff Bezos, “and the way he makes money.” Amazon bought Whole Foods in 2017. Some cautioned that the arrival of another Whole Foods store with nonunion employees and alleged that the grocer and its parent company have not been transparent, or taken care of workers properly during the pandemic.“Low wages and low benefits is not what the community needs,” Fisher said.Ratings for the Bay Area and California, updated every 10 minutesSome nearby residents say the usage of an environmental appeal is disconnected from worker issues.“I understand the concerns about (Whole Foods) being nonunion, but to have it come down to a CEQA decision is odd,” said Jane Natoli, who lives in the Inner Richmond, referring to the California Environmental Quality Act, which regulates environmental reviews. The Board of Supervisors to the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency board.The City Center location would have been Whole Foods’ eighth store in San Francisco. Whole Foods signed a 20-year lease for the store in January 2019, after Best Buy closed in 2017. The space sits above a Target, and a Trader Joe’s is one block away.The complex at the corner of Geary Boulevard and Masonic Avenue is owned by Acadia Realty Trust, which bought the 204,000-square-foot property for $155 million in 2015. The shopping center was once anchored by a Mervyn’s, the defunct Bay Area department store chain.Cressman, the Richmond resident, worries it’ll be hard to fill the space, as few retailers can afford to move into large stores with high San Francisco rents.“How is having an empty store serving anyone’s needs?” she asked. “It’s really frustrating to see this time and time again.”Shwanika Narayan is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: Twitter: Instagram:Ratings for the Bay Area and California, updated every 10 minutes

This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigateGrocery store Whole Foods’ efforts to open in a retail space that has been empty for three years in San Francisco’s Western Addition may be delayed for years.The Board of Supervisors approved on Tuesday night an appeal by opponents of the proposed store, which will require Whole Foods to undergo environmental review, a process that can take years. The Planning Commission had previously voted to exempt the store from the review, but will have to vote again on the project after it is complete.Supervisors questioned the Planning...

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Shwanika Narayan

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Opponents upend Whole Foods plan to open S.F. store in Western Addition

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