We'll say what everyone's thinking — it's about time.

San Francisco has spent years hemorrhaging retail. Stores have shuttered, commercial vacancies have climbed, and the city's leadership has responded with the bureaucratic urgency of a DMV appointment. So when a major chain actually wants to invest more money into a San Francisco property, the correct municipal response is: get out of the way.

That means streamlined permitting, not years of environmental review for a grocery store renovation. It means not nickel-and-diming the project with fees and conditions until the economics no longer pencil out. We've seen this movie before — a company commits to building in SF, gets dragged through an approval gauntlet, and either scales back or walks away entirely.

Say what you will about Safeway — and Bay Area residents have plenty of opinions. As one local put it, "Safeway got super expensive unless you religiously clip coupons." Fair. Another resident noted the practical reality: "There's four Safeways within a 10-minute drive from me and it's the only store within walking distance." Love it or hate it, Safeway is infrastructure for a lot of San Francisco neighborhoods, particularly for residents without cars.

The broader point isn't whether Safeway has the best produce or the lowest prices. It's whether San Francisco is still a city where businesses want to grow. Every expanded investment is a vote of confidence — one the city desperately needs. Every abandoned project is a signal to the next company thinking about putting capital here.

The revised plans are a good sign. Now the city needs to do its part: approve the project without turning it into a five-year saga. San Francisco doesn't need another cautionary tale about what happens when bureaucracy meets commerce. It needs a grocery store.