This week’s walk began high in the Belmont hills, and ended, as usual, at my home near Sequoia Hospital in Redwood City. I came down from the hills via Middle Road, which, as I neared El Camino Real, gave me some so-so views of a project that is actually kind of hard to see otherwise:

From the intersection I was able to duck beneath the tracks at the Belmont Caltrain station, after which I headed up Old County Road to the project site at 815 Old County Rd. The reason that this particular project is so hard to get a view of is because it is located on a flag lot, and thus is set back behind another building that is located along Old County. The best I could do was get a glimpse down the driveway:

In case you are wondering, I was there at lunch time. Many of the workers were trying to enjoy their lunches in what little shade there was to be had.

This new five-story, 240,000-square-foot building contains, to no surprise, luxury apartments. 177 of them, in fact, 27 of which will be made affordable. Called The Hayden Belmont, its apartments range from studios to two-bedroom, two-bathroom units, a handful of which are handicapped accessible. The apartments are leasing now, with first occupancy occurring in November. Prices range from just under $3,000/month for a 515-square-foot studio, to just over $5,000/month for a 1,045-square-foot two-bedroom, two-bathroom unit. Being luxury apartments, they contain the expected high-end fixtures and finishes, and include in-unit clothes washers and dryers, smart thermostats, and keyless entry. From the photos on the website, the units do look very attractive and undoubtedly are quite comfortable. And of course there will be plenty of amenities for the residents, including a pool and spa (with adjacent outdoor fireplace), an outdoor grilling space, a well-appointed fitness center, a rooftop deck, a clubroom and a “co-working lounge”, a pet spa, and secure parking with some number of EV chargers.

Just a few blocks down Old County Road (heading towards Redwood City) an even larger project is also rapidly nearing completion. There — at 1325 Old County Road — you’ll find Artisan Crossing, a 250-unit apartment building that, like The Hayden, contains units ranging in size from studios to two-bedroom units:

This project, which comes to us courtesy of Windy Hill Property Ventures, is also a luxury apartment project, and thus has many of the same type of amenities that The Hayden Belmont has. Artisan Crossing, too, will have some number of affordable apartments: 38, I believe, for people earning at or below 80% of the area median income. As for public benefits, the triangular plaza in front of the building (see above) will be open to the public, with trees and bench seating. Perhaps more importantly, a portion of the building’s ground-floor space will be dedicated to “onsite music and art lessons and classes offered by the Community School for Music and Arts (CSMA), a 50+ year old nonprofit arts organization headquartered in Mountain View.”

Artisan Crossing is located just across the Caltrain tracks from Belmont’s Safeway shopping center, with its numerous shops and restaurants. Unfortunately, to get to one from the other you have to walk a block south, to Harbor Boulevard, then cross under the tracks and walk back north for one block. While it isn’t all that difficult of a trip to make, at some point Belmont hopes to build a pedestrian/cyclist tunnel beneath the tracks at O’Neill Avenue, which would make going back and forth a breeze. And it would greatly simplify the process of getting to Belmont’s wonderful Twin Pines park, which is not too far behind the Safeway building.

Rather than continue down El Camino Real towards home — that’d be the direct route, and I rarely take those! — I opted to use Ralston Avenue (more accurately, the cyclist/pedestrian overcrossing just north of Ralston) to cross over Highway 101. From there, I worked my way over to Twin Dolphin Drive, and headed down that street: I wanted to check in on the progress of the office building under construction at the corner of Twin Dolphin and Cormorant drives. Currently, the site has been cleared, and forms for the foundation of the five-story building (and the adjacent five-level parking garage) are being placed. This work is hard to observe from street level, however, given the opaque construction fences that today surround the site:

Every once in a while, though, Lady Luck smiles down on me, and boy did she come through this time. As I stood on the berm directly across the street, trying rather unsuccessfully to get a better view, I was approached from behind by a gentleman who worked at the Grand Bay Hotel, upon who’s property I was standing. It seems he had guessed what I was trying to do, and had an offer for me: he asked if I’d like to accompany him to the hotel’s roof, from which I’d be able to get a much better view of the going’s-on across the street. I couldn’t say no to that, of course, so I followed him inside the hotel, up nine floors via the elevator, and then up an employee-only stairwell up to the rooftop:

He had a few chores to do up there, and so I found myself free to (carefully) roam the roof to take in the sights. Of course, I first made sure to take a couple of good pictures of the office project site, since that is why I originally went up there:

Then, I just had to take a picture of the runway at the San Carlos Airport, which of course wasn’t too far south:

To the north, I had a nice view of the Redwood Shores Lagoon, and the Oracle buildings:

And if you’ve ever wondered what the pool is like at this hotel, well, here you go:

(Personally, I’m not great with heights; just looking at the above picture makes me a bit uncomfortable!)

As for the hotel itself, it is looking really good:

I asked my guide, Kevin, about the name change, and was told that it was due to new management, who was working hard to revitalize the place. I, like many of us, still think of this place as the Hotel Sofitel (for a while, it was known as the Pullman Hotel). From what I could see, new name or not, the hotel still is as luxurious and comfortable as ever. It was pretty quiet, though: the societal changes that have come about due to the pandemic have badly affected the hotel business in general. But that presents an opportunity: if you know of anyone coming to town who needs a recommendation for a hotel, suggest that they consider the Grand Bay. For such a high-end hotel, the room prices actually seem quite reasonable (note that they vary greatly from one day to the next; some days are much more expensive than others). And the Grand Bay of course has a number of ballrooms plus a great restaurant and bar (called “Scroll Bar”: I love that), making it a great choice for a variety of functions.

The Grand Bay Hotel is a bit “out of sight, out of mind,” so it’s easy to forget that it is there. But it’s a four-star hotel located right on the water, and is actually quite easy to get to by car. So we should all keep it in mind when we or someone we know has need of such a place.

Getting back to the office building for a moment, that’ll be a modern-looking five-story, 200,000-square-foot building. Thanks to a rendering included with the project plans, it should look a lot like this:

Finally, one more bit of hotel news. Almost exactly three years ago, the Redwood City Planning Commission approved a project that would replace the Shell gas station at the corner of Veterans Boulevard and Brewster Avenue with a four-story, 91-room hotel. I’ve been keeping a close eye on the site ever since, and haven’t seen any visible signs of the project — until today. While driving my regular Meals-on-Wheels route earlier today, I passed by the site and noticed that, at long last, the gas station seems to have closed and construction fencing now surrounds the site:

I went back by, and noticed that although they no longer seem to be selling gas, there was a driveway opening in the fence on the Brewster side and the mechanic seemed to still be working on cars. At the same time, though, I could see (and hear) a landscape crew clearing trees from behind the station, presumably as a pre-demolition step:

It does not appear that the project’s demolition permit has been issued yet, so it may be a while yet before the gas station is torn down. In any case, if you drive by the site and wonder what is going on, now you know!