Proposed Whole Foods development still months from city review
(Aug 2006)

The overwhelmed and/or inefficient (depending on who you talk to) city Planning Department is more than six months behind in assigning environmental planners to review proposed projects. The Brennan family, owners of the former Cala Foods lot at 690 Stanyan, submitted an environmental review application for a Whole Foods/apartment/underground parking garage development in April––and have their fingers crossed that the city will start to examine it before 2007.

While Calvin Welch and the Haight Ashbury Neighborhood Council (HANC) are still not enamored with the pricey and non-union Whole Foods, they have focused on finding an interim tenant to prevent the property from becoming a problematic vacant lot in the estimated two-plus years preceding the proposed demolition of the former Cala building. At HANC's July 13 meeting, neighbors brainstormed two dozen possibilities, which some people pointed out could be a calendar of happenings on the site rather than a group of competing ideas.

Suggestions included a play area for the Page Street Boys & Girls Club, flea market, farmers market, resident parking lot, a temporary Haight Ashbury museum, an interim headquarters for the SF Urban Alliance for Sustainability, a seasonal homeless shelter, artist studios and galleries, performance art rehearsal space, venue for Neighborhood Emergency Response Training (NERT), garden center and cannabis farm.

Some community members accused the Bennans of just going through the motions with no genuine intent to rent the space before the proposed demolition. However, the Brennans say they are open to renting to an organization, probably at below-market rate, assuming it could pay for insurance, utilities and possibly property tax.

The Haight Ashbury Improvement Association (HAIA) held a meeting on the same topic six days later, and a petition seeking support for the development was circulated. HAIA has formally endorsed the plan, and is now looking to expedite a lengthy planning process that has frustrated Whole Foods.

Matt Holmes of Retail West, who is handling logistics for Whole Foods, noted that Albertsons recently hired Retail West to help clear out a San Francisco store and that additional struggling grocery stores will vacate buildings in the next three years. He hinted that if the process drags on for too long, Whole Foods could jump ship and move into another location.
Debate also surrounds what would be above and below the grocery store: the residential architecture and the subterranean parking garage.

Those who subscribe to the "if you build it, they will park," theory argue the proposed 180 parking spaces (with roughly one-third reserved for residents of the above apartments) will flood the intersection with the same kind of traffic the McDonald's drive thru would have brought. The collaborative effort of neighborhood groups to reject the drive thru 20 years ago was successful in large part because of data predicting serious disruptions in Muni service.

The Brennans have hired a traffic engineer to study potential traffic impacts of the development.

As for the revised sketches of the proposed development's exterior (depicted on page 1), opinions––often strong––vary. Holmes said the drawings are "purely conceptual" at this early stage.

"By no means do I expect that the [latest plans] are what we'll see on the ground. "

The development will not include property east of the empty former Cala building. The design as drawn from the Haight Street view is indeed much longer than current building, as the development would extend west––over what is now parking lot––close to the Stanyan sidewalk.