Gourmet Safeway Opening Downtown

Safeway is planning to open a 58,000-square-foot store in downtown Washington tomorrow, the only full-service supermarket in that neighborhood and the first store that the company has built in the District in 11 years.

The store is on the ground floor of the new CityVista complex in Mount Vernon Triangle, a roughly $250 million project with 685 condominium and apartment units and 120,000 square feet of retail. Nearly 150 condos have been sold, and leasing of the apartments will begin within the next two months, said Amy Adams, vice president of developer Lowe Enterprises. The Safeway is located at 5th Street and New York Avenue NW, on the former site of a wax museum.

"This is just a very vibrant part of D.C.," said Steve Neibergall, Safeway's eastern division president. "I think the community will be very pleased."

About 150 people will work at the Safeway, many of them District residents, company officials said. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) and D.C. Council members Vincent C. Gray (D) and Tommy Wells (D-Ward 6) attended a reception at the new store yesterday. A ribbon cutting is planned for today, and District Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) is slated to speak at the grand opening Friday.

The store is Safeway's 17th in the city and one of only five in the company's eastern division with a nut bar, where shoppers will be able to grind their own cashew butter and other spreads. Dubbed an "urban lifestyle" store by the company, it also features an open-flame hearth oven and a large assortment of wine priced up to $300. Thai chili peppers, daikon radishes and cactus leaves sat chilling in the produce section yesterday.

"No retailer ever wants to be first," said Bill McLeod, executive director of the Mount Vernon Triangle Community Improvement District. "Safeway is going to be such a huge traffic generator that it's going to signal to other retailers that this is a great neighborhood."

The once blighted area is slowly attracting new retailers. Locally owned Fifth Street Hardware opened this summer, and popular bar and coffee house Busboys and & Poets is expected to open within two months, McLeod said. The neighborhood hopes to attract more retail and restaurants, though McLeod said development has slowed with the economic downturn.

"It's not all done yet, but they have understood that you don't have to wait for it to be all done," Norton said of Safeway. "You came when you were needed."