Safeway delays closure of SF's Fillmore District store until early next year
SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- Safeway in San Francisco's Fillmore District will remain open through early Jan. 2025 following complaints from the community.
"They have done something that they have never, ever done before. They agreed to continue to keep the store open," said Mayor London Breed. "Yes! Yes! Everyone should be elated! Yes!"
Mayor Breed says that gives the city more time to explore what's next for the site including more housing and a new grocery store.
In an email to the mayor's office, ABC7 News asked if Safeway was incentivized to stay open with say, extra police officers, which our crews saw on property when we were there Monday. We have yet to hear back from the mayor's office about this.
"I'm just glad to hear it's gonna be open for another year!" said Tony Horn who lives in the neighborhood.
"We want it to stay open and it's a process and we'll take it you know, it's next year - it's better than nothing we'll take it for now," said Kim Deshore who shops at the store.
While the reactions were positive Monday from those living in the Fillmore and Japantown neighborhoods, there is a bit of uneasiness about what happens after it does close next year, especially for seniors and families we ran into.
"Well it makes me feel a tiny bit better, but they shouldn't close it at all because it's too useful to the people here," said shopper Carolyn Powell.
"January is just prolonging the inevitable - I think that they should stick around for longer than that," said nearby resident Cara Mico.
Safeway announced in early January that it had entered into an agreement to sell 3.68 acres of land at Webster Plaza to Align Real Estate and close the store in March after 40 years.
RELATED: SF community outraged over plan to close Western Addition Safeway: 'Moving all the Blacks out!'
San Francisco residents, the NAACP and community leaders expressed disappointment with the planned closure.
"It is the destruction of a community!" said Dr. Amos Brown with the NAACP back on Jan. 7.
Safeway released a statement on Monday on the extension writing:
"We have decided to extend the closing date to January 2025 to give the community and the City more time to establish a transition plan. Beyond the closure, we will continue to serve this community with our grocery delivery services and will work with our customers to transfer their prescriptions to another Safeway location or a location of their choice. We remain committed to serving San Francisco at our remaining 15 locations."
RELATED: SF community outraged over plan to close Western Addition Safeway: 'Moving all the Blacks out!'
San Francisco Supervisor Dean Preston introduced legislation earlier this month demanding Safeway reconsider its plan to close the grocery store in March.
We spoke with him Monday night and he told us that whatever is on this sight going forward, it should include a grocery store.
"There's a lot of work to do to figure out what is going to happen at this site and make sure the community is involved but first things first - we're all very relieved and pleased that we're not facing the closure of Fillmore's only full service grocery store in March," said Preston.
Supervisor Preston and other community leaders will hold a rally Tuesday at 9 a.m. in the parking lot of the Safeway demanding a community-led plan for the site and announcing legislation related to grocery store closures.
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