I first wrote about the 150 Charter St. project more than seven years ago: in March of 2019. That was just after I noticed the appearance of the original proposal for the site, which today is home to a rather attractive Mi Rancho Supermarket located in what one might be forgiven for thinking is the parking lot for Redwood City’s Target store:

Back then, I described what had been proposed this way:

So, just what is being proposed to replace the Mi Rancho Supermarket? A four-story, 72-unit [11 affordable] condominium complex. A handful of the units, all of which would be located along the ground floor facing Charter Street, would be two-bedroom, two-bathroom single-level units. The remaining would all be three-level units with living, dining, kitchen, and a half bath on the bottom level, a master suite and a small den on the second level, and two bedrooms and another full bathroom on the uppermost level. All of the building’s parking would be in an internal garage on the ground level, largely secreted behind the single row of ground-floor condominiums.

After an updated design was submitted to the city in 2020, it was approved by the Redwood City Planning Commission in May of 2021. However, the project never got much further than that, and a year or so ago the proposal disappeared from the city’s Development Projects web page.

I’d felt some amount of disappointment when it became clear that the project was not to be, given that it would have added a decent number of for-sale units to the city’s relatively small stock of “missing middle” housing: housing that is more affordable than the average single-family home, and thus is ideal for first-time home buyers as well as for existing homeowners looking to downsize. Thus, you can imagine my delight when, just a week or two ago, a new proposal for a project at 150 Charter St. appeared on the city’s website, this one also for a townhouse-style condominium project, with the units being for sale.

This new proposal is somewhat smaller, and more conventional in its design. Gone is the large parking garage, and gone are the smaller condominium units. Instead, the latest proposal calls for six buildings containing a total of 58 townhouses (nine below market rate), all with private garages as you typically find in modern townhouses. These new condos are to range in size from just over three bedrooms and 1,000 square feet (not counting the garage), up to a tad more than 2,000 square feet with four bedrooms. Twenty-four of the units will have a single car garage, while the rest will have two car garages. And all of the units are to be three stories in height, with second floor balconies.

Here is a rendering showing what the complex would look like:

As best as I can tell, in this image the street along the left face of the project is Charter Street, while the one to the right is actually a driveway leading into the Target parking lot from Charter Street. The left-most row of townhouses are to have their front entrances facing Charter; their garages will open onto a driveway running between the buildings.

The following image (which you may want to click on so you can zoom in and scroll around) shows how the six buildings would be laid out:

Note that Charter Street runs along the bottom of the image, and that the railroad tracks run along the left side. A fragment of the Target store is visible right along the image’s top edge.

As you can see, rather than constructing four monolithic buildings, the two closest to Charter Street are split in two, creating a walkway that leads from Charter Street into the center of the development, where there will be green spaces dotted with trees. The central buildings will all have their townhouse entrances facing that central landscaped space (front doors are indicated by pink arrows), while the townhouses in “building 6” — closest to the Target building — will have their main entrances facing that building. The two inner driveways — shown in brown — provide vehicular access to all of the townhouse garages (with the locations of the garage doors indicated by blue triangles). This plan also makes clear where the smaller townhouses with the single-car garages are located; they are noticeably narrower than the units with two-car garages.

The fact that a unit has a narrow single-car garage doesn’t mean that the upper floors are equally narrow. Consider, for instance, the two units in the upper right corner of the above image. The right-most unit is quite narrow, indicating that it has a single-car garage, while the one to its left looks more than twice as wide, with ample room for two cars parked side-by-side. Here is a close-up of the garage level for those two units:

Here you can see that the wider unit has a bedroom (which could of course be used as a den or office) and full bathroom on that same level, along with the unit’s foyer and stairway to the second level. The narrow unit omits that ground-floor bedroom. Note that the garages also contain the unit’s water heater and trash/recycle bins.

Heading up the stairs, the second-floor plan shows how the wall between the units has shifted, giving the two units about the same amount of square footage on that level:

Although the two units have the same amount of square footage on their second levels, the right-hand unit has a bedroom and a full bathroom on that level along with the unit’s kitchen and living/dining space. Compare that with the left-hand unit, which just has a small half-bath to accompany the kitchen and living/dining space. The lack of a bedroom on this second level gives the left-hand unit has a much bigger living/dining area (and also has a kitchen counter that apparently can be used for dining). Also note that both units have very small balconies (on the end opposite the kitchens; note the inward-opening door leading out to the narrow outdoor space, which seems too small for furniture).

Heading up the stairs to the third level, everything equals out for these two units:

Except for the fact that the layouts are mirror-images of one another, they are otherwise pretty much identical, with two bedrooms, two full bathrooms, and a closet plumbed for a stacked washer/dryer.

Overall, both units have three bedrooms, but by putting its third bedroom on the ground floor, the left-hand unit gains a much larger living space and a somewhat more functional kitchen. As well, it gains a half-bath that guests can use without encroaching on the privacy of the three bathrooms that are tied to the three bedrooms.

Finally, the four-bedroom units have one bedroom (or den or office) and bathroom on the ground floor along with the two-car garage, a huge living space on the second floor (including a half bath), and three bedrooms and two full bathrooms on the third floor.

Out of the 58 units, 10 have four bedrooms, 24 have three bedrooms and two-car garages, and 24 have three bedrooms and one-car garages. Pricing for the units — which won’t be set until the development is complete — will vary depending upon the unit size (with larger units commanding higher prices, of course). The nine below-market-rate (proposed for those at the Moderate income level) will be scattered throughout the development, but all will be units with one-car garages.

Location-wise, 150 Charter St. has definite pluses and minuses. On the plus side, being literally next door to Target and therefore close to all of the shops and restaurants in that center, will be extremely convenient to many. Too, that part of El Camino Real — just a short block away — has a number of other shops and restaurants, all within easy walking distance. And SamTrans runs buses up and down El Camino Real, making getting around without a car easy. On the minus side, although there are a few homes within a block or so of the site, it isn’t located in what today you would call a residential area. Plus, the site is located right up against the railroad tracks: there will undoubtedly be noise from the occasional freight train and of course Caltrain (which, thankfully, is much quieter these days thanks to electrification). Finally, although there are a pair of “community outdoor chat rooms” (between buildings 1 and 2, and between buildings 3 and 4), except for the unit balconies, most of which seem pretty small (six of the four-bedroom units, all end-units, have somewhat larger balconies that do appear to have room for a pair of chairs, at least), the units have no dedicated outdoor space.

Undoubtedly there are numerous people for whom the negatives aren’t an issue. Hopefully these units will be priced on the lower end of the scale (and there are those nine below-market-rate units, which will lower the cost of nine of the lowest-cost units); if so, they should sell quickly and thus begin the transformation of their part of Charter Street into Redwood City’s newest place to live.

This project is newly proposed, and thus still has to go through the city’s normal process for approval of projects like these. It will likely be some time before it appears on the agenda for a Planning Commission (or City Council) meeting, but you can bet I’ll be watching when it does.

Stanford Medicine’s proposed Cancer Center project — for its Redwood City campus — is getting really interesting. Back in April, Stanford committed $10 million in future operating costs for an American Cancer Society Hope Lodge, which would provide free accommodations and support services to cancer patients (and their families), not just at Stanford but anywhere in the Bay Area. Now, Stanford has added to the pot, by providing a location for that future Hope Lodge: 1124 Arguello St. in Redwood City. This place:

Apparently Stanford purchased the former A1 Rental Center property, and just over a week ago announced that it will be donating it to the project. The future Hope Lodge is estimated to cost in the ballpark of $150 million to construct; the American Cancer Society still needs to raise those funds. Too, the project still needs to be formally proposed and run through Redwood City’s standard approval process. But this should be a terrific addition to Redwood City; a real feather in the city’s cap. I’ll be interested to see what the Cancer Society actually proposes in the way of a building (or buildings), and I’m looking forward to comparing the proposal to the office/residential project that formerly had been proposed for this particular Redwood City property. Yet another thing for me to keep my eyes open for…