Tip of the hat to the Redwood City Pulse, who just today reported that Mountain View resident Jessica Han is opening a second location for Bloomsgiving, this one in Redwood City. Bloomsgiving is a flower, plant and coffee shop, and, starting this Saturday, February 3, will be found at 893 Winslow St., in the location formerly occupied by Joe & the Juice (directly across from Curry Pizza House and the Box buildings).

Saturday marks the soft opening of Bloomsgiving’s Redwood City location. The official grand opening, according to the Redwood City Pulse article, is scheduled for February 17. Han apparently intends for this new store to be open from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. seven days a week — but those hours are tentative, at least for now (and especially until the official grand opening). But if you are in the area this Saturday, or any day after that, consider going by and, if they are open, checking them out. Assuming that the menu in Redwood City is similar to that for Bloomsgiving’s Mountain View location, they’ll be serving up cappuccinos, espressos, lattes, and other interesting-looking concoctions. Oh, if you do go by, be sure to welcome them to Redwood City!

Since I was in the area taking the above picture, I took a few steps to the right and captured some in-progress pictures of the intersection of Winslow Street and Theatre Way, where the mechanism that will more permanently be used to keep vehicles off of Theatre Way (except for deliveries, trash pickups, and emergency vehicles) is being installed. I wish I knew what was taking so long! The mechanism with the movable bollards (look past those orange posts) was put in place more than three months ago, and although new sidewalk curb cuts were poured two or three weeks ago, not much else seems to have happened in the interim. Instead, we are left with a half-built project that I would think could be wrapped up relatively quickly:

I can’t imagine what the holdup is…

Two weeks ago I attended an open house put on by the folks at Lane Partners, the developer behind the proposed mixed-use project at 1900 Broadway. If you don’t know the project by its address, perhaps its new name — “Broadway At Main” will help. Still not enough? How about a picture:

The proposed project — mainly office, but some ground-floor retail, plus (now) a separate affordable housing project — has been in the works for quite a while, but it was one of the ones caught up in Redwood City’s “Gatekeeper Process,” and thus had to wait until that process had completed. The Gatekeeper Process, you may or may not recall, considered the impacts of the various Gatekeeper Process projects and then adjusted the Downtown Precise Plan (DTPP) and the caps that the DTPP had placed on development in the downtown area, thereby enabling the gatekeeper projects to resume moving through the typical approval process.

While waiting, Lane Partners tweaked their plans to (they believe) better address the needs of the community. In its original incarnation, the top two floors of the proposed seven-story building would have consisted of 71 units of affordable housing. Now, though, the affordable housing component of the project has been shifted to a stand-alone site on Woodside Road (more on this in a bit).

As it now stands, the project will be almost entirely office, but will be somewhat smaller overall than originally planned. That is, the developer hasn’t simply taken those top two floors and designated them as office, but instead has altered the building’s shape such that, although it still tops out at seven stories, it not only is smaller but actually looks it. The original design was going to be just over 325,000 square feet, whereas the current one is right about 256,000 square feet. Here is what the first design would have looked like:

And here is how it looks in its current incarnation:

Both of the above renderings view the project from the vantage point of someone standing in front of the Hotel Sequoia, kitty corner from the proposed project. In the foreground is the project’s public plaza, which I was told should be roughly 2/3 the size of the central part of Courthouse Square (the flat portion between the two water features). Unlike Courthouse Plaza, however, this new one should be shadier (notice the trees) and at least partially covered with artificial turf:

If this project is actually built, I for one can see spending time in this plaza: it looks like a great place to take a break on a sunny California day, unlike most of Courthouse Plaza, which is exposed and can get quite hot. The current plans call for two retail spaces on the ground floor, both of which would be entered from the plaza. The larger of the two would be to the right of the curved pergola in the above rendering, in that double-height section of the building. The other would be opposite the pergola, between the two rows of trees (near the top of the above image). As for the office space, the main lobby for that would also be located just off this plaza, to the right where the two wings of the building’s “L” come together. Finally, I should note that I was told that the retail spaces would be equipped such that they could accommodate restaurants.

Sadly, the building’s three rooftop decks — one of which you can see above the larger retail space — would only be accessible by the office tenants: none would be made available to the public. But beyond the open plaza and the retail spaces, this project does have a bit more that might interest we members of the public: the plans also show a “community art room,” and a dedicated storage area for use by the city. In the latter the city could keep things like an inflatable screen and projector, if it chooses to show movies in this plaza in addition to (or instead of) Courthouse Square. Oh, and I should note that the developer clearly has the city’s seasonal ice rink in mind, and anticipates using the plaza during our coldest weeks to host that particular amenity, thereby keeping Courthouse Square free for other activities.

One nice benefit concerns the project’s parking, all of which would be in a two-level underground parking structure accessible from Walnut Street. That parking would be open to the public on nights and weekends, and unlike some other downtown buildings that provide the same benefit, the close proximity of this project to Redwood City’s little “restaurant row” would likely make the offered parking attractive to many. I should note that although most of the parking during the weekdays would be for the building’s office tenants, there will be some number of spaces (35 or so) open to the public, for those patronizing the building’s retail spaces. And I also believe that the developer has an agreement with the folks wanting to redevelop the Hotel Sequoia that would reserve some number of spaces for use by the hotel’s valet service.

Really, though, the biggest benefit that this project would provide (again, assuming it is actually built) is the proposed five-story, 86-unit affordable housing project that would accompany it. As I noted, the developer no longer intends to locate the housing within the building at Broadway and Main, but instead would build it on an underutilized site at 847 Woodside Rd. Today the building currently located at that address is being used as a church, but not too long ago it was a mortuary:

In lieu of the above building and its fairly large surface parking lot, the developer hopes to build this:

Being located almost directly across the street from a Safeway supermarket, having two bus stops within very easy walking distance, and being immediately adjacent to an existing multi-story housing project makes this proposed building pretty much ideal for an affordable housing project. Except for the manager’s unit, all of the building’s studio, one, two and three-bedroom apartments would be targeted to households earning between 30 and 60 percent of San Mateo County’s Area Median Income, adjusted for family size. The building would be built, owned and managed by Eden Housing, on the site — worth an estimated $14 million — that would be given to them by Lane Partners.

This is an interesting project: I’ll be very interested to see how it fares when it finally comes before the city for possible approval. In particular, I’ll be curious to see if there is any discussion around what I consider to be the most controversial feature of the project: the abandoning of a one-block section of Spring Street, a block that is critical to making the transition between Marshall Street and Broadway smooth. Without it, we’ll no longer be able to head east on Marshall Street and then angle right for two blocks on Spring before then angling left and merging onto Broadway: instead, we’ll either have to take a different route entirely, or do something like take Marshall Street to Walnut Street, take a sharp right, and then go left on Spring before merging onto Broadway. It wouldn’t be the end of the world, but it would be enough of an inconvenience that I believe it’d markedly alter the area’s traffic patterns. In any case, that one-block section of Spring Street along with the triangular parklet just across the street, are needed to turn this oddly shaped block into a full rectangle with enough room to host the proposed project.

On the subject of whether or not this project will actually get built, given the current uncertainties in our area’s market for office space, I asked about that. First off, for a project like this the current market isn’t particularly relevant. Instead, one has to consider (well, predict) what the market for commercial space will be in four or five years, when this project could come online. And then, I was told that Lane Partners likely wouldn’t build the proposed project unless they have some certainty about landing a tenant. Since no tenant (assuming there is one) would commit to pre-leasing space in a project like this until the project has gotten a green light from the city, Lane intends to push forward through the approval process, after which, assuming the project is approved, they would intensify their search for likely tenants. So know that if this project actually breaks ground, it isn’t likely to sit empty. But also know that if the city approves the project, it may not get built for a long time, if ever.

Currently the project is in the “application deemed incomplete” stage: it won’t be scheduled for public meetings by the Planning Commission and/or the City Council until an application that meets the city’s criteria for a project like this has been formally received by the city. From there the approval process will take many months. So don’t expect to hear much more about this project for a while yet.

I don’t normally make a big deal of these things, but I at least wanted to note that this is my 500th blog post, the vast majority of which have something to do with Redwood City proper. I was kinda hoping that 500 posts would correspond with one million words, but I’ve not quite reached that milestone yet: with this post, I’ve written about 944,000 words, and published about 3,960 images (most of which I’ve taken myself, but some of which are renderings, some of which are maps, and a few that are aerial photographs taken by an acquaintance of mine). Not bad for a part-time hobby, I think…