Lovers of the 1975 film Monty Python and the Holy Grail will undoubtedly catch the reference in this post’s title (although in the film the line is actually “I’m not dead”; there is no “yet”). Although that phrase popped into my mind when thinking about the upcoming year for Redwood City, you don’t have to know anything about the movie; it works just fine for Redwood City as well. Things will likely be quieter this year than in the last previous ones, but there should still be plenty of things for me to report on this year. Starting with the latest project on the Kaiser Hospital campus, which is rapidly coming to an end, and hopefully continuing sometime this year with the reworking of Hoover Park — two topics that I’ll be discussing shortly in this post. But first, there are other interesting signs of life around Redwood City, starting with this:

That photo shows is the interior of 851 Main Street, the rightmost of the retail spaces in the historic portion of the four-story office building on Main Street between the IOOF building and Angelica’s Restaurant and Bar. This building:

Work has finally begun to refit this particular space for its first new tenant: The Baker Next Door (thebakernextdoor_rwc on Instagram). Despite our relatively cold weather, the folks behind that particular venture (which really will be a bakery: they make terrific bread, plus cookies and other things) have continued to sell their wares from a light green pop-up tent in front of the central space (where the orange posts and red flags are visible in the above photo) almost every Friday from around 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. (they close up early if they sell out, FYI). My wife and I went by earlier today and bought a couple of loaves of bread and some cookies. They aren’t guaranteed to be there every Friday (in particular, I’m guessing that if it is raining you won’t find them there), but they’ve been remarkably consistent so keep an eye out for their tent. And watch for them to be operating from their retail space, hopefully sometime later this year.

This week I went by the site of the new CVS Pharmacy (at the corner of Woodside and Bay roads). A lot of the shelves are up, and so I expect that employees will start stocking those shelves soon:

I’d been told that the store would be open in February, and that indeed appears to be the case.

While wandering the site, I happened to catch sight of this sign on the parcel right next door to the CVS (along Bay Road):

It indicates that The Sobrato Organization — the developer behind the large Broadway Plaza project just across Woodside Road and indeed the new CVS Pharmacy building itself — plans to construct a relatively small two-story “Research and Development Office Building” in place of the parking lot that is at the corner of Charter Street and Bay Road. The sign indicates that the project should be listed among the projects on the city’s Development Projects website, but as of this writing it isn’t showing up, so we’ll have to wait for a preliminary plan. But Sobrato, at any rate, still seems to believe in the future of Redwood City….

…as does Lane Partners, it seems. Lane Partners is behind the proposed large project that would be built at the corner of Broadway and Main Street, where the now-empty Wells Fargo Bank building still stands. Their mixed-use project, which they now are calling “Broadway At Main,” will now apparently consist of seven stories of office space, with 10,000 square feet of retail on the ground floor (along with two levels of underground parking, a “public commons plaza” at the corner of Broadway and Main, and a community art room). Paired with the project, as a way to at least partially address the “jobs/housing imbalance,” would be a five-story, 86-unit affordable housing project to be built at 847 Woodside Road, where today an old funeral home is being used as a church. As for how I know that this project is still alive? Not only did the developer submit new plans to the city late last year, it is presenting those plans to an invited group tomorrow afternoon. Thankfully I managed to snag an invite, so expect to hear more about this project in a future post.

On to this week’s main topics. Redwood City’s Kaiser Hospital campus has been in a state of redevelopment for quite a few years now. The latest project is a reworking of the space remaining when the old hospital tower, which wasn’t up to code as far a seismic standards are concerned, and the smaller nearby “Oak Building” were both torn down. The space that was freed up by the removal of those two buildings has been reworked into a new parking lot and driveway entrance for the relatively new “Medical Office Building #2” (which was completed in April of 2021). Being mostly parking and driveways, the result isn’t super exciting, but Kaiser was planning to include a small children’s playground, a community garden, and a couple of spots where a small farmer’s market could be held. Because all of those amenities were to be buried back in a part of the project I cannot easily get to until the construction fences come down, I’ll report back on what those are like (if indeed they were actually built). I should be able to report back soon, since this particular project is scheduled to be completed around the end of this month.

Based on this week’s visit, it appears the work crews are pretty much down to finishing up the sidewalks along the Maple Street side of the project:

Those who regularly drive along Maple Street will surely be thrilled to have the construction fences come down and the full driving lanes restored.

Next to the Maple Street driveway entrance to this new part of the campus, Kaiser has added a whimsical bit of public art:

What appear to be five robots, each with a different colored-head, are standing in a circle holding hands. Hopefully there will be a statement from the artist somewhere explaining what this particular artwork is about. Whatever that explanation turns out to be, I do like the work itself…

The sidewalk corner at Veterans Boulevard and Maple Street has long been blocked off, making walking through here a bit tricky. It seems that corner will be about the last thing to be completed:

Personally, I can’t wait for this; I walk through here a lot, since Maple is a great way to get over Highway 101 to all of the interesting things that have until recently been taking place on the Bay side of the city.

As simple as it is, I find the Kaiser project to be interesting. Thus, I spent a bit of time this week looking over the project as best I could from the vantage points available to me. I spent a lot more time, though, near the corner of Woodside Road and Spring Street, at Hoover Park. For some time now the city has been working (through a consultant) on a plan to revamp the park, not only making it more appealing to those living in the area, but perhaps more importantly, making the park safer. At long last, the plan is complete.

For years now this park has attracted all manner of unsavory characters, and also has played host to some of our homeless folks, one or two of whom even tried to set up house in the park’s bathrooms. To deal with the issues, the city removed some of the park’s amenities — most importantly, its picnic benches — to discourage drug dealers and the like from hanging out in the park, but that of course made the park less attractive for those who would like to enjoy it as a public park. Finally, this park is home to two of the city’s few public swimming pools, but those pools have been closed for the past decade or so due to aging infrastructure and increased costs of operation.

The land beneath Hoover Park, I discovered, is actually owned by the Redwood City School District (along with the sports fields and, of course, the Hoover School campus), and is leased to the city for public use. The sports fields are considered part of the park, but are shared between the school and the city. Thus, the park’s listed 10.18-acre size, but the relatively small size of what many would consider to be the park itself.

Here is an aerial view of the park as it is today; I’ve added the yellow dotted lines around the portion of the park that is to be remodeled:

Note the relative size of that portion of the park and the two sports fields. Also note that by the time you subtract the two pools, the space for the parking lot, and the mostly unusable land between the parking lot and the surrounding streets, what is left is a relatively small area. Also note that the park today is somewhat barren; ignoring the closed pools, there is a bathroom building, fairly simply playground, and an equally simple “tot lot.” Oh, and there is also that basketball court, which sits up against the Boys and Girls Club building. That court is scheduled to remain as-is, which is why it isn’t included within the dotted-lines.

Here is a picture of the playground, as it stands today:

In the aerial photograph, this part of the park stands out by the color of the bark that forms the surface of the playground.

Here is the tot-lot:

This can be found in the aerial photograph between the playground and the swimming pools; its distinctive blue rubberized surfacing is clearly visible within the otherwise rectangular pad where the two pools can be found.

There isn’t a lot else to say about this park as it is today. As you can see, especially with the pools closed and the picnic benches removed, the park is not one of the jewels in Redwood City’s crown. However, the city’s Parks and Rec staff has recognized this, and thus the project to design, with substantial input from the local community, a more appropriate park for the area.

The new design not only makes for a much more interesting, and thus attractive, park, it deals with some of the park’s current logistical issues. For instance, it includes an expanded parking lot, adding 14 more spaces to today’s 50-space lot. And it reworks how those spaces are laid out, changing the existing parking lot’s one-lane in-and-out into a loop, thereby improving traffic flow. Plus, it adds a dedicated drop-off area on Spring Street, eliminating the need for people doing drop-offs or pick-ups from having to enter the parking lot (or having to find street parking, which can be tough in that area). Finally, the new design calls for a great deal more lighting, and improves sight lines so that there are fewer places where people can transact illicit business out of sight of others.

Although the community showed a strong desire to keep a pool at this park, the costs involved with both upgrading the existing pools and then keeping them running just don’t make satisfying that desire feasible. Instead, the plans call for a large “splash pad” with some fun water features that should prove popular on hot summer days.

Removing the pools (and the attendant building that contains the pool equipment and supplies) frees up a lot of space that can be put to a much better use. In addition to having a larger playground and a larger tot-lot than in today’s park, the new design includes a number of features that I don’t believe are in today’s version of the park:

• A stage
• Two Pickleball courts
• Ping-Pong tables
• A volleyball court (with artificial turf)
• A community garden
• A fitness area
• A fenced dog park, with a divided area for small dogs
• A larger restroom facility that includes a concession stand and storage
• An outdoor classroom area (which can be used by both the school and the Boys and Girls Club)
• A dance floor

Here is the final plan that the consultants came up with:

[click on the above to zoom in]

Note that although the parking lot is larger than today, it expands towards the street, and thus doesn’t seem to consume any usable park space. Note also that the dog park is tucked in the back corner of the park along Woodside Road (next to the basketball court), away from the kids’ play areas. The picnic areas are pretty much dead-center within the park, and close to both the playground and the tot-lot, whereas the outdoor classroom is lower down, close to the Boys and Girls Club building and closer to Hoover School. Finally, the volleyball courts, ping-pong tables, and pickleball courts are all down near the bottom of the park, adjacent to the school and the existing sports fields. These will be easily accessible from the small parking lot at the bottom of the photo (and the rendering), which I think is mostly for use by the Boys and Girls Club.

This seems to be a really nice design, and one that satisfies most of the desires expressed by the local community. I don’t know when the city will actually get around to redoing this park, but I imagine that for the many folks who live in the immediate area, the project to do so can’t come soon enough. Fortunately, I believe that the city has dedicated park funds that can be used for this project, so hopefully any issues the city is having with its General Fund won’t be the cause of any delays. I also hope that it gets underway soon: I’m not only looking forward to watching the new park being built, I’m also looking forward to wandering through the new park when it is done, and seeing the children enjoying its many new facilities.