San Francisco planners deemed Align Real Estate's revised Marina Safeway project eligible under state streamlining law AB 2011 by a Thursday deadline, clearing the first stage and starting the clock on a ministerial approval for 848 apartments at 15 Marina Boulevard.

Nothing at 15 Marina Boulevard looks different this week. The Safeway is still a single-story grocery store wrapped in a surface parking lot, holding down a 2.6-acre block within walking distance of Fort Mason and the yacht harbor. The change that landed Thursday was a bureaucratic one — a deadline met — and it moves the block a decisive step toward the two towers that have been drawn for it.

Thursday was the last day for San Francisco's Planning Department to decide whether the housing proposed there still qualifies for AB 2011, California's 2022 law that lets qualifying housing on commercially zoned land bypass most discretionary review. The San Francisco Chronicle's Laura Waxmann reported that planners determined it does. That determination is what starts the real clock. The Chronicle described (external source, opens in a new tab) the AB 2011 path as two consequential 90-day stages, and Thursday's eligibility ruling closes the first and harder of them. Now the department must approve or deny the project on a ministerial basis — judged against fixed standards, not argued out at a hearing where neighbors can vote it down. If it clears, developer Align Real Estate can move to building permits.

What's on the clock is bigger than the first sketch. Align refiled in July, and San Francisco YIMBY, which has tracked the filing (external source, opens in a new tab), reported the revision raised the apartment count to 848 from 790 while trimming the height to 258 feet. The two towers — one 18 floors, one 22 — would share a podium. The mix skews small, one-bedrooms the largest slice and studios just behind, but it includes 114 three-bedrooms for families and 86 homes deed-restricted for households at roughly half the area median income. A grocery store of about 67,000 square feet anchors the base, with parking for 349 cars below. Arquitectonica, the Florida firm, designed the sloped and balconied massing; Align is filing on behalf of the store's owner, Albertsons.

The July refiling reset the state calendar. Planning had 30 days to confirm the new plans were complete, then 90 more to rule, chief of staff Daniel A. Sider told YIMBY — and Thursday is the day that first gate cleared. The spring fight sits behind the process now: District 2 Supervisor Stephen Sherrill argued the block's park neighbors disqualified it, a claim planning director Sarah Dennis Phillips rejected in July. What's left is a ruling on a fixed schedule. Anyone walking past tomorrow still sees a grocery store and a parking lot; the next 90 days decide whether that stays the view.