Thanks for your article on the proposed Pinehurst Safeway store (see January 2000 issue of the Jet City Maven).

Your readers should understand that community opposition to the proposed design is rooted in the basic goals of the Northgate Comprehensive Plan: pedestrian-friendly development (although still preserving automobile access), mixed uses, and lively neighborhood business districts among them.

Safeway proposes a bland, single-story, concrete-block box with a sea of surface parking. The proposed building turns a cold shoulder to 15th Avenue, and turns its back to the other streets. The majority of the 15th Avenue frontage would be surface parking, so the pedestrian would have traffic on one side of the sidewalk and a parking lot on the other.

Not too pedestrian-friendly!

Safeway would transform a site that supports housing and another retail/wholesale building into a single-use superstore. This crude design is more appropriate for the far suburbs than an urban area.

What's particularly distressing is that our area now has terrific examples of groceries that are an asset to their streets and communities rather than eyesores.

Harvard Market on First Hill has a terrific street presence, with small shops opening to the street surrounding the grocery core, as well as structured parking to make more intensive use of the site.

Uwajimaya is building a grocery in the International District with 176 apartments above, and QFC on Broadway was considering a similar plan.

Whole Foods is anchoring a redevelopment of Roosevelt Square that includes many other retailers and services.

Safeway itself built an acceptable store on Crown Hill and an exemplary remodel on Broadway. Although its new Roosevelt store is a disappointment from an urban design standpoint, it demonstrates the feasibility of underground parking for a grocery.

Safeway wants a special favor from the City: to rezone part of its site from residential to commercial. In return, Safeway should build a store with entrances from the street, not just the parking lot; with small-shop space on the street, to increase the diversity of shops and services available in Pinehurst; and with under- or over-building parking, to minimize the sea of asphalt and free up part of the site for other uses, including housing, which would reinforce the retail vitality of this neighborhood business district.

This is what the Northgate Comprehensive Plan requires and DCLU and the neighborhood should require nothing less.

- VINCE SLUPSKI,

Maple Leaf