Every year comes to an end, and every year I look back and wonder where all the time went. In some ways this was a busy year in Redwood City, but in other ways it was the quietest in a while. Weather-wise, it was a good year: we got all the water we needed, and then some (and our current rainfall season — which starts on October 1 and ends on September 30 — started slow but is finally showing promise).

In terms of new development, in 2023 the list was long for a city the size of Redwood City, but shorter than in the last couple of years. Most interestingly, only a single new project was proposed in 2023, and that was the affordable housing project proposed by MidPen Housing for the city-owned site at Maple Street close to the freeway (on the Bay side). Contrast that with 2022, when eight projects were submitted to the city.

Approval-wise, the city approved seven significant projects in 2023. These were:

• Redwood City Discovery, at 1330 El Camino Real (the Record Man/Happy Donuts site). The approved project is a six-story, 130-unit residential project that would sit opposite the pair of multi-story apartment buildings built in the last couple of years just across El Camino Real.
• 1201 Main Street Mixed Use, a five-story building with two levels of below-grade parking that would replace the current Wings Academy building close to where Main Street crosses the Caltrain tracks. The new building would contain about 72,000 square feet of office space plus 28 residential units.
• Redwood Square. Although this six-unit townhouse-style condominium project is billed at being located at 2336 El Camino Real, in reality it sits at the back of the property with that address, and thus the condos, if built, will face onto, and have addresses on, Linden Street (the project would be located at the corner of Linden Street and Hemlock Avenue).
• Rise City, on the empty “Bethlehem A.D.” property at 1304 Middlefield Rd. (across Middlefield from the Rise City church). This seven-story building would consist of 94 apartments (studios, one- and two-bedroom units), all of which would be affordable at the “Low” affordability level.
• Townhomes at 505 E. Bayshore. This project would replace the metal buildings currently occupied by Alan Steel & Supply on the east side of Highway 101, where Whipple Avenue turns into E. Bayshore Road. The development would consist of nine buildings comprising a total of 56 townhomes, a number of which would face directly onto Bair Island.
• Hotel Sequoia. The renovation and expansion of the existing, historic hotel building at the corner of Broadway and Main Street would add three floors of guest rooms and a rooftop bar to the existing building’s three floors, making the building roomy enough to contain 82 hotel rooms, one ground floor retail and one restaurant space, and various basement amenities.
• 1 Twin Dolphin Drive. This project, which was approved by the Redwood City Planning Commission in October, would replace two existing office buildings in Redwood Shores — one quite small — with a five-story life-sciences building.

Of course, project approval doesn’t mean that the project immediately gets underway. A lot of behind-the-scenes work has to take place between when a project is approved and when the first shovel bites into the ground. That work can take a year or two, depending upon the size of the project, and along the way the developer might conclude that the project is no longer feasible. Thus, not only will you see no activity if you visit any of these sites, there might never be any (until conditions change, anyway). But these seven sites are worth keeping an eye on; any or all of them could get underway in 2024.

As anyone living in the area knows, however, the city saw plenty of development activity throughout 2023 . Much of this was on existing projects, including the massive ELCO Yards project along El Camino Real between Maple and Cedar Streets and along Main Street between Beech and Chestnut Streets; the Broadway Plaza project along Broadway between Chestnut Street and Woodside Road (and across Woodside, with the construction of the new CVS Pharmacy at the corner of Woodside and Bay); the county’s Navigation Center on Maple Street east of Highway 101; the county’s new office building at 555 Marshal Street; and the city’s new Veterans Memorial Building/Senior Center, being constructed at 1455 Madison Ave., in Red Morton Park. In addition, though, a handful of other projects got underway in 2023:

• 200 Twin, at 240 Twin Dolphin Dr. in Redwood Shores. This five-story office building and five-level parking garage are replacing a small complex of single-story office buildings.
• 955 Woodside Townhomes. This eight-unit townhouse-style condominium complex replaced a small animal hospital along Woodside Road. The project got underway in April, and is making good progress to date; I expect the townhomes will be for sale in 2024.
• 690 Veterans Hotel. In October, the Shell gasoline station at the corner of Veterans Boulevard and Brewster Avenue was demolished in preparation for the construction of a four-story, 91-room hotel.
• 239 Vera Avenue. Like the hotel, this five-unit townhouse project got underway in October with the demolition of the old house (on a rather large lot) that previously stood at this address. Other than a bit of trenching, there has been little visible activity since then, but I expect that work will ramp up early next year.

Finally, a number of projects were completed in 2023, including:

• 353 Main Street Family Apartments, a 125-unit affordable apartment building.
• 910 Woodside Rd. This ten-unit condominium building was constructed on the site of the former Thaibodia restaurant.
• Vera Avenue Townhomes, at the corner of Vera Avenue and Adams Street. This complex, which took longer to construct than I would have expected, finally wrapped up in 2023 and the units went on the market. Some number have been sold, but based on the fact that signs are still up along Vera Avenue, some of the complex’s three-story townhouses are still on the market.
• 1180 Main Street, the three-story office building at Main and Maple streets now occupied by the Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative.
• Miramontes, the six-story affordable apartment building constructed at 1304 El Camino Real as part of the ELCO Yards project.
• The County Navigation Center, built using modular construction at the corner of Maple and Blomquist streets. This project wrapped up and opened its doors in 2023. I had the good fortune to tour it before it began accepting residents (it can handle up to 240 folks transitioning from homelessness to a more permanent form of housing at one time), and came away quite impressed not only with the quality of the units but how each resident has a small, but private unit (unless they choose to share; some of the units are designed for couples).

Our current economic conditions may be doing a number on developers, if the number of projects that have been proposed but have not yet been submitted for formal approval are any indication. Redwood City’s Development Projects webpage currently lists 14 of these, although one is the recently proposed county project at 1580 Maple St., which arose fairly recently and thus wouldn’t be expected to take the next step so soon. Another is the Sequoia Station project, but if you’ve read the news lately, you’ll know that that project will soon disappear from the list: the project developer, Lowe, has sold their portion of the Sequoia Station shopping center project to a new developer, Hunter Properties, who intends to spruce up the center, lease out the empty spaces, and run the place pretty much as-is for ten years or so. But who knows? 2024 should provide some clues as to the true fate of this shopping center project.

Of the twelve remaining projects on the proposed-but-not-yet-approved list, most are sizable. And because our current interest rates likely make it difficult for large projects like these to pencil out, the developers may be stalling, hoping for more favorable conditions. As well, for those projects with a major office component, the developers may be waiting for an increase in office space demand before going forward with those projects. So we may not see very many projects go before the City Council or Planning Commission in 2024. Which I’m sure will be a relief to many Redwood City residents…

The development picture aside, 2023 was an interesting year for Redwood City in a couple of ways. For one, all four of the city’s retail cannabis outlets opened this year, beginning with Embarc (where Broadway and Spring Street come together) in early February and ending with Airfield Supply Company (on Whipple Avenue, at Stafford Street) in mid-December. In January, major steps were taken towards the final design of a park to be constructed adjacent to the downtown branch of the public library. And Redwood City’s Housing Element — its plan for how it intends to encourage the construction of a rather substantial number of housing units by 2031 — was approved by the state, making Redwood City one of the first in the Bay Area to gain such approval.

In 2023, Cordilleras Creek overflowed during our heavy rains, damaging a couple of homes that back up onto the creek and raising the issue of just who is responsible for keeping the creek clear of debris. Caltrans did its part and replaced the Highway 101 bridge over the creek. But a lot of the responsibility seems to have fallen on the individual homeowners. Hopefully things go better in 2024.

Redwood City’s Safe Parking lot, at the corner of Maple and Blomquist streets, closed in 2023. It was only intended to be in operation for around two years or so, and the program appears to have been fairly effective (coupled with regulations banning RVs on a number of city streets) in helping a number of RV dwellers to either find a more conventional form of housing, or to move on. The long lines of RVs that plagued a handful of Redwood City’s streets do, for the most part, seem to be a thing of the past.

Over on Hopkins Avenue, between El Camino Real and a point just west of Alameda de las Pulgas, the project to implement a handful of traffic calming measures finally wrapped up. And on Middlefield Road from Woodside Road to about Main Street, the project to beautify the street, underground all of the unsightly overhead wires, and build wider sidewalks and protected bike paths also wrapped up.

In August of 2023, Redwood City opened its new permanent recycled water station, at the corporation yard at 1400 Broadway.

Finally, in 2023 there was a lot of activity in the city’s retail and restaurant scene. Much of that was good — a number of new businesses popped up this year — but we did lose a few, such as Patty Shack on Main Street. A couple that I expected to open in 2023, including Limón Restaurante Peruano (on Theatre Way), Mazra (at 2021 Broadway), and Ocean Oyster Bar and Grill (in the old Spaghetti Factory space at the corner of Broadway and Jefferson Avenue) didn’t, but I believe all continue to make progress and likely will open soon. The four previously mentioned cannabis retailers added a new dimension to the city’s retail space, as did Sound Union, a rather interesting new venture for those who create music. Redwood City did see a number of restaurants and a handful of small retailers open in 2023; the list is long enough that I won’t include it here (but I’ve written about many of these new businesses in blog posts over the year, if you really want to know).

You can definitely feel the wheels of change slowing somewhat in Redwood City; I expect my summary at the end of 2024 to be shorter than this year’s. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing (unless you helped construct the city’s budget and were counting on continued strong development to help keep the city’s coffers filled, I guess). It may prove a bit challenging for me in finding enough interesting things to write about next year, but Redwood City always seems to have a way of surprising me. Stay tuned…