Major design changes to a proposed remodeling and expansion of Tacoma’s Proctor Business District Safeway store could pave the way for a construction start on the project next spring.

Those design enhancements – nine months in the making – were designed to address the harsh comments the original design proposal received last summer from neighboring businesses and residents.

The revised design includes windows on the expanded Proctor Street side of the supermarket, exterior artwork that’s keyed to the neighborhood, an indoor-outdoor seating area with a fireplace and a change in exterior materials to brick to more closely mirror the nearby Proctor firehouse.

Critics complained the original design turned a blank wall to the district’s busiest street, Proctor, that the metal artwork featured generic Tacoma images rather than neighborhood-related designs and the choice of exterior materials, tile and metal siding, wasn’t compatible with the neighborhood.

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In recent meetings with the Proctor District Business Association and the North End Neighborhood Council, the new plans have received kudos from business leaders and neighborhood activists.

“I’m really happy with the design that they’ve now proposed,” said Mary Jo Strom Copland, Proctor Business District Association president. “I think the store will be an asset to the neighborhood.”

“The way it’s designed now, I think it will help Proctor become even more of a city-wide destination,” said Copland.

The business district plans to allow members to make further comments on the design proposal in an Aug. 7 general membership meeting.

The plan calls for expanding the store, opened in 1967 and remodeled three times since, by 10,000 square feet. That addition will bring the store’s western exterior wall nearly flush with the Proctor Street sidewalk. The expanded store would have some 44,000 square feet of interior space, said Safeway spokeswoman Cherie Myers.

“We’ve been able to incorporate into the store all of the new features that this neighborhood has deserved for a long time,” said Myers. The Safeway store competes with the upscale Metropolitan Market across Proctor.

The upgraded Safeway will include an expanded bakery including a hearth-style oven like the one Safeway built in its new downtown Bellevue store, said Myers. The interior will feature a new Starbucks and an “island-style” deli department, a sushi section and a larger organic produce and floral area, she said.

Where the original remodeling plan featured a kind of vestigial plaza with outdoor tables, the new design includes a larger covered outdoor-indoor seating area with a fireplace as the centerpiece.

The new project will be a much more extensive redo of the store than the remodelings in 1988, 1992 and 1994, said Myers.

“By today’s standards, those were what we might call just ‘facelifts,’” she said.

Even with the design alterations, the store will still need variances from the city to win its building permits. The positioning of the present store won’t allow the new design to fully meet city requirements for building modulation and window standards.

“It’s probably impossible for an existing building to meet those standards,” said Copland, “but this design goes a lot farther toward that goal.”

Securing those permits and preparing final plans is likely to take several months, said Myers, thus the spring construction date start. The grocery company said it hasn’t yet revised its construction cost estimate for the project.