Safeway is expanding the scope of its San Francisco store redevelopment, submitting revised plans that go beyond what the grocery chain originally proposed last fall. Details on the specific location and full buildout remain thin, but the direction is clear: bigger footprint, bigger ambitions.

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.