My wife and I just got back from a lovely, relaxing two-week vacation on the beach in San Diego. Because we didn’t get back until Wednesday evening, I didn’t have enough time to take a proper walk this week. However, because I’m always eager to see what transpired whenever I’m away, this week I drove what I normally would have walked. I console myself with the fact that at least the vehicle I was driving was electric, and that it will get recharged from the solar panels on my home’s roof. But that doesn’t help me get my usual exercise, so I’m planning to take a walk or two this weekend to make up for that (and then I’ll do my usual walks next week). The first of my weekend’s walks, hopefully, will be along the Bair Island trail that hugs the east side of Highway 101, where I should be able to get a very up-close view of the project to replace the Cordilleras Creek bridge. Hopefully you’ve all gotten the alerts by now, but if for some reason you are hearing it here first (or if you’ve simply forgotten), starting at 10 p.m. tonight, Friday, October 13, Highway 101 northbound between Whipple Avenue and Holly Street (in San Carlos) will be closed for 55 hours, until 5 a.m. on Monday, October 16. (The southbound lanes already experienced a similar closure two weeks ago.) Note that all of the traffic that normally would use that portion of the freeway during the weekend will be scrambling to find alternate routes; expect much higher traffic than usual on Industrial Way, Stafford Street, and El Camino Real, and possibly even Alameda de las Pulgas and Highway 280.

The second walk I’m thinking about taking this weekend is downtown, on Sunday, October 15. That is when the Redwood City Arts Commission will be hosting its first-ever Community Art Walk and Art Tour preview event. They bill this as a one-hour, guided stroll to explore some of the city’s downtown art. If this interests you, be in Courthouse Square (2200 Broadway) by 10 a.m. Oh, and if it helps, coffee and pastries will be provided…

On my drive this week, I first dropped in and checked on the Veterans Memorial Building/Senior Center project. I didn’t see much of note to report — work continues, but from the outside not much has changed for a while now — so I moved on to my next target, the eight-unit townhouse project at 955 Woodside Road, and, directly across the street, the remodeling of the Bravo Taqueria and 5th Quarter Pizza buildings.

As you can see, the townhouse project is making great progress; the three-story buildings need only receive their roof trusses for framing to be complete. While I was there, I saw a lot of below-ground utility work underway. In particular, those long trenches you see in the above photograph were receiving what appear to be drainage pipes, either for sanitary sewage or for rainfall runoff:

Then, across the street, what was first billed as a relatively minor remodel of the Bravo Taqueria building has turned into what is essentially the construction of an all-new building:

The adjacent 5th Quarter Pizza building (to the right of the taqueria building) still appears mostly untouched (other than having the rear part of the building lopped off) but I’m guessing that the contractors are using that one for secure staging of tools and materials while they work on the Bravo Taqueria building. Once the taqueria building is complete, they’ll likely turn their attention to the 5th Quarter Pizza building, which, based on the rendering posted in front of the building, is going to look quite different from how it looks today:

I’m pretty sure that the Bravo Taqueria building will also look a lot like this rendering; I believe both buildings have the same owner, and it appears that the same contractor is working on both. I don’t know what took so long for these projects to get underway (5th Quarter Pizza closed in January 2020, and that building has been sitting, unused, ever since), but I’m glad to see both buildings getting new, attractive faces. In addition to showing a nice rendering of what the 5th Quarter Pizza building will look like, the sign shown above also lists the space as for lease. Hopefully, though, the popular Bravo Taqueria will, as intended, re-occupy their space once that part of the project is complete.

Having checked in on the townhouse project along Woodside Road, my next stop is almost always to check in on another townhouse project that sits just two or three blocks off of Woodside Road, but way down by El Camino Real. This seven-unit townhouse development is located at 31 Center Street, and is just one block from the Target shopping center and about one-half block from the tiny, but lovely, Linden Park.

As you can see, the exteriors of the two buildings that make up this development are close to complete. While the interiors likely still have some work to be done on them, this project has been zooming along ever since the first shovel hit the ground. Thus, I expect that the units will be on the market in a matter of a few short months. I for one will be very interested to see what these two and three bedroom units go for: they are right on the edge of a residential area, but on one side they look out onto a motel (the Budget Inn, at 2526 El Camino Real, if you are curious) and on the other they abut a tire repair shop. They have a very transit-friendly location, however, and the other two sides do look out at single-family homes, so there’s that…

My next stop was at Broadway Plaza, and our new CVS Pharmacy. Although the new pharmacy is not yet open, the building seems to be done: all of the construction fencing is down, and the contractors have, for the most part, gone.

With the fencing down, I was free to wander the property, and even peek inside through the windows:

As you can see, the fixed parts of the interior are complete, including the checkout counter (in the foreground of the above picture) and the pharmacy area (in the back). The next step, it seems, is to build the shelving, which I assume is what is on those pallets in the center of the floor. Then, the merchandise from the old store directly across Woodside Road can be transferred over, and the new store can open its doors.

Because I was able to wander around the entire building, I was able to examine some of the development’s more interesting features. I’ve written in the past about the bioswale that is located along the Bay Road side of the property; it is designed to channel runoff and filter out debris and pollution. As it turns out, there is a second one along the backside of the property, against the property line with the adjacent Smart & Final store:

Speaking of that adjacent property, I was interested to see that there is now a driveway connection between the two: you can exit the CVS Pharmacy through Smart & Final’s property and make your way out to Broadway, or you can get to the CVS Pharmacy from Broadway by cutting through Smart & Final’s parking lot:

The back side of the CVS Pharmacy building is also where you’ll find one of its best features: its drive-thru:

My wife and I often use the drive-thru at the Walgreen’s in San Carlos, and I’m guessing we’ll make use of this one, too.

Across the street, the site of (half of) the giant parking garage on the Broadway Plaza project site is abuzz with activity:

There are a handful of large square pits in the floor that now are receiving pre-fabricated (on-site) rebar structures; these are either for support pillars and/or elevator shafts or some such, or they are to serve as bases for tower cranes. We should soon know which…

Whether or not the Broadway Plaza project will be getting tower cranes, those of us who enjoy watching them work needn’t wait for that project, of course. The six-block (and six-building) ELCO Yards project along both El Camino Real and Main Street recently erected its third tower crane, to accompany the nearly as large mobile crane that has been working on site for months now. I love how the contractor has had to put large numbers on the cranes, presumably so that when talking about (or to the operators of) one of those cranes it’s clear which crane they mean. The most recent one, erected on Parcel C at the corner of Main and Cedar streets, is number 2. Number 1 is located across Main Street on Parcel E, and number 3 is the one out on El Camino Real at Cedar Street.

Here is tower crane number 1. As you can see, it is making itself very useful, helping to put in place all of those rebar structures:

Beneath the concrete floor you see in the above picture is a two-level underground parking garage. The rebar structures you see are will support the two buildings that will sit atop this parcel’s single large garage. I took the above picture from the northwest end, by the Main Street Dog Agility Park; over at the Chestnut Street end of the parcel, the building that will stand there is even farther along:

As you can see, forms are in place to enable the pouring of the building’s first floor ceiling/second floor floor.

Just across Main Street is the site where tower crane number 2 is located. This was the third of the three office building sites to get underway, but it is catching up quickly:

Finally, out on El Camino Real, tower crane number 3 has been instrumental in helping construct the three-level underground parking garage that will be located there:

Atop this garage will be a mixed-use building, one that will have “family-friendly retail” and a childcare center on the ground floor, plus offices on the upper floors.

My last stop on this week’s Redwood City project check-in was to the site until recently occupied by a Shell gas station, and now slated to become the home of a 91-room hotel. Last time I went by — a couple of weeks ago — workers in hazmat suits were taking the roofs off of the station building and the gas pump islands. In the interim, the site has been completely cleared:

I’m sorry I missed it; I love watching the process of building demolition. The excavator operators make the process of pulling a building down and then separating and sorting the result into its component parts look easy — although I know it is not. In any case, the crew here seems to have done a really clean job, and the site now seems ready for foundation work. I should note that they won’t be digging very deeply on this site: the hotel’s 71-space parking garage will be located entirely within the building’s ground floor (the garage will employ mechanical car stackers and a valet to squeeze the requisite number of cars in).

I always marvel at projects like these: this lot (at 27,000 square feet) appears too small to accommodate a four-story building that will have all of its 91 rooms on the upper three floors. But I’ve seen enough projects through to completion to know that lot sizes (and room sizes) are illusions that seem to shrink and grow as the project proceeds. Certainly, the plans show the building fitting neatly onto the site, so who am I to doubt? And the renderings included with those plans show an attractive building, one that will look far nicer than the gas station that it is replacing…

Have a great weekend, and don’t forget about the Highway 101 closure. If you are looking for things to do that don’t involve driving, consider checking out the Art Walk on Sunday. Or, there is always the circus: the very first showing of the Zoppé Italian Family Circus for this season just got underway as I’m writing this (at 4 p.m.). There will be another showing tonight at 7 p.m., followed by a great many showings between now and November 26. Zoppé put on a great show, and for a reasonable price. The circus tent is located in the parking lot at the corner of Jefferson Avenue and Middlefield Road (adjacent to the main library), and there should be plenty of parking in the garage beneath the movie theaters or, in the evenings, within the Box Buildings just across Jefferson Avenue.