Before getting into the main topics, a brief public service announcement. In case you hadn’t noticed, Redwood City has replaced a number of crosswalk buttons with upgraded versions:

Yes, they still have physical buttons, but there is no longer any need to actually touch them: simply wave your hand in front of the button and it’ll activate. These things are terrific, and seem to work really well. So be sure and look for one of these signs before just blindly pushing the button.

On a related note, some signalized crossings (like this one, the El Camino Real crossing at Hopkins Avenue) now give the right-of-way to pedestrians a few seconds before giving the adjacent cars a green light. This allows you to step out into the street before the cars are free to go, making you far more visible to them. But this advantage only lasts for a few seconds, so keep alert and start moving just as soon as the pedestrian sign lights up; if you are looking at your phone and don’t see it right away, you lose that small advantage. Oh, and as always look out for people making a right turn on red.

Following up on last week’s blog post, this week I did indeed walk by the three other sites that Redwood City has approved to become cannabis retail outlets. Whether or not these three actually go ahead and join the two currently in operation (Embarc, at 1870 Broadway, and Juva, at 2301 Broadway) and the one that will soon be opening its doors (Airfield Supply Company, at 928 Whipple Ave.), though, is in question. Only one of the sites I visited showed any signs of activity at all, and even at that one there has been no real movement since the construction fences went up some weeks ago:

You probably recognize this site, at 620 El Camino Real, between Hopkins and Brewster avenues. For some time now this has been a place where used cars were sold: most recently it was home to CL Auto Group, but before that it was Toyota 101’s used car center, and before that, back when we still had a Honda dealership directly across the street, it was Honda Redwood City’s used car center. In the distant past, as you might guess just from looking at the building, I believe it was a restaurant of some sort.

In any case, Flor Peninsula LLC aims to update the building’s facade and remodel the interior, turning it into what would presumably be Redwood City’s fourth cannabis retailer. In April of this year the California Department of Cannabis Control (I hadn’t known that there was such a thing before now!) issued a license to Flor Peninsula. Then, in mid-July that company applied to Redwood City for the building permit needed to remodel the building. That permit has not yet been issued, but given the fencing around the property and the application itself, it does appear that this project will go ahead. The fact that the building permit has not yet been issued explains why there has been no on-site activity recently; that should change shortly after Flor Peninsula has their permit in hand.

Next up is this place, on Broadway just east of Maple Street:

This one’s a bit curious. This building appears to be mixed-use, with a commercial space on the ground floor (in the center) and one or more living spaces above. The address for the new cannabis dispensary, though, is listed on the city’s website as 1764 Broadway; 1764 is the right-hand of this building’s three front doors, which I would have guessed leads to an apartment. The center door, that opens into the commercial space that dominates the building’s ground floor, is 1766 Broadway. The left-hand door — which also appears to lead to an apartment, likely upstairs — is 1768 Broadway. Although I would have expected a cannabis dispensary to occupy the central commercial space, which until recently was home to Redwood Barber Co. (they’ve since moved to 841 Main St.; this Broadway location is now empty). But both Redwood City and the State of California do indeed have 1764 Broadway as the future address for MMD Redwood City, Inc. The fact that there appears to be plastic covering that right-hand glass door, plus the fact that the city issued a building permit for remodeling of some sort at that address, indicates that perhaps that right-hand door leads not to a residence, but to a second commercial space, one that will be the new dispensary. Either that, or that door leads to an office, and the central retail space will eventually be where purchasers will go. Whichever it is, something definitely is going on in this building, and soon I expect that what may be Redwood City’s fifth cannabis retailer will be operating from within.

Lastly, we come to this little shopping center on Woodside Road (at the corner of Woodside Road and Central Avenue; Central Avenue becomes Hudson Street on the other side of Woodside Road):

The plan, it appears, is to replace the Liquor/Deli store on the end of the building with an Element 7 outlet. Element 7 already operates a number of cannabis retail stores throughout California, with plans to open one or two in San Francisco (and possibly one in South San Francisco). They are on Redwood City’s list to open a store in the above-pictured location, but I have to wonder whether that’ll actually happen. For one thing, they do not appear to (as yet) have a state license to operate a store in Redwood City. Plus, Redwood City is not listed on the Element 7 website as a future location of theirs. Then again, in November of last year someone applied for a building permit to turn this space into a cannabis retail outlet (that permit has not yet been issued, though). So…maybe?

Assuming none of the folks behind these new ventures gets cold feet, it appears that within a couple of months or so Redwood City may indeed have five or six operating cannabis retailers, making it the go-to place for those looking for cannabis goods. And if every store is as nice as the two operating today, that may not be a bad thing at all. Although I’ve never been in either of our two current stores — I have no need nor desire for the products they sell — they at least look attractive from the outside, and appear to be (so far) trouble-free.

Enough cannabis talk. On my walk I of course had to check in on the progress being made on the ELCO Yards project. As I had previously surmised, they are indeed in the process of erecting a third tower crane to support this massive project, this one on the parcel at the corner of Main and Cedar streets:

I find it interesting that the project now has so many cranes that they’ve had to put large numbers on them, presumably so that when talking about them they can be clear which one they mean:

Over on the County Center property in downtown Redwood City, the county continues to make good progress on the new Sheriff’s Office Headquarters building:

And the old Shell gasoline station at the corner of Veterans Boulevard and Brewster Street (soon to be a hotel) is actively being demolished. So far, the work has been done by hazmat crews in bunny suits, who when I was there, were stripping the roof off the island above the gas pumps:

(Note that the gas pumps themselves have already been removed.) I took the above picture on Tuesday; when I then drove by on Thursday, these same folks had moved over to the gas station building itself, where they appeared to be tearing its roof off. It does make sense that demolishing a gas station needs to be done with more care for the environment that most other buildings…

The new subterranean parking garage being built at Broadway Plaza now has a mostly complete concrete floor. Interestingly enough, rather than install the needed underground plumbing and utilities before pouring that floor, this crew seems to have first poured around where the pipes and conduits will go. While I was there they seemed to be installing the pipes and conduits in the gaps left in the concrete. Presumably they’ll then do a second pour to create a smooth, uniform floor that encases those pipes.

Across the street, at the new CVS building, I observed a number of PG&E trucks. The crews seemed to be working inside the building, perhaps making the necessary hookups to power up the building (all of the project’s utilities were undergrounded as part of construction). I also noticed that a liquor license application has been affixed to the construction fencing. That application is to transfer the license from the existing CVS, just across Woodside Road, to this new store (they need a license because they sell beer and wine). It is still pending, but really it should just be a formality.

Finally, I’m starting to see Halloween decorations popping up in some people’s yards. It seems kinda early, but some people really get into the season. How early? Well, head over to 258 Lowell St, where they’re displaying a countdown of the number of “days ‘till Boo”:

Nice going, folks! I clearly need to come by your place much closer to Halloween itself and see if the build-up is justified!