Before I get into the main topic of today’s post, allow me to do a quick follow-up on restaurant updates (I’m starting to think that this should be a regular section; this is the third post in a row where I’ve covered Redwood City restaurant news!). In response to last week’s post, reader Cathleen wrote in to let me know that Hikari Sushi & Grill, in the small center at the corner of Whipple Avenue and El Camino Real, had closed, but that it was already in the process of being replaced by Burma Spice, a Burmese restaurant:

Indeed, when I went over earlier today to take the above photograph, the front door was open and work was clearly going on inside.

Limón, the Peruvian restaurant that is coming to the old Arya Steakhouse space at the far end of the Century Theatres building, has put up some really nice looking signs. One is over the door:

And another is just around the corner, on the side of the building:

Just another indication that this restaurant will likely be opening its doors very soon. Personally, I can’t wait to give Peruvian food a try!

On to the main topic. Recently, Redwood City’s Architectural Advisory Committee (AAC) voted to recommend the 1900 Broadway project — the large mixed-use (office and retail) project slated for the former Wells Fargo Bank site at the corner of Broadway and Main Street — to the City Council (the AAC’s recommendation only considers the project from an architectural perspective; whether the project makes sense for downtown Redwood City is beyond their purview, and is something that the city will consider at a future date). To my surprise, however, the AAC chose not to give their thumbs-up to the affordable housing component of the project, which would be built elsewhere in town: on the site of a former mortuary that is currently being used as a church, at 847 Woodside Rd. This place:

The proposed project would be a five-story building consisting of 86 apartments, 85 of which would be made affordable to residents qualifying at a variety of income levels (including 21 at the Extremely Low income level — folks earning at or below 30% of the county’s median income). Given the city’s aggressive goals for creating affordable housing, this project is exactly the kind of thing that the city is looking for, and is located in an area that the city has recently focused on as ripe for more housing. But whether or not the project meets a need of the city is not something that the AAC takes into account when they are considering a project. Instead, they look at the physical aspects of the building itself, as well as how the building impacts its surroundings.

Just what issues did the AAC have with this building? There were three main ones:

• The shadows that the five-story building (54 feet to the roof) would cast on surrounding buildings
• The project’s density
• The relative lack of parking

The developer’s justification for the apartment project’s high density and relatively few parking spaces is apparently due to its proximity to transit (buses run up and down Woodside Road) and to shops and restaurants. But in a recent newspaper article the AAC chair was quoted as saying that the site is not pedestrian friendly, is not bicycle friendly, and only has limited public transportation nearby.

I do agree with the site not being bicycle friendly — I would never consider riding along Woodside Road — but although transit is limited in the sense that there is only one really useful bus line running up and down Woodside Road, that particular bus line appears quite useful indeed. SamTrans route 278 runs between Cañada College and the Redwood City Transit Center, with buses running every 30 minutes during commute times and hourly otherwise, up to 10:20 p.m. And the bus stops a half-block west of the project site, and a half-block east. So residents of this new project without a car can easily hop a bus and get to Caltrain (and of course the adjacent Sequoia Station, and downtown Redwood City), to Canãda College, and to numerous points in between.

As for being pedestrian friendly, I regularly walk up and down Woodside Road and frequently pass this exact project site. Based on my personal experience, I find the conclusion that the site is not pedestrian friendly to be a bit curious. Not only are there good crosswalks on both sides of the street (crosswalks that are currently receiving new curb ramps at a number of intersections, I should note, thereby improving access for those with mobility issues), there are signalized intersections nearby (one a half-block to the west, and one about a half-block to the east) enabling relatively safe crossings of Woodside Road. And there are plenty of stores and restaurants nearby. In particular, Safeway and Starbucks are almost directly across the street.

Parking, at least, may indeed be a legitimate issue: a normal residential project of this size would be required to supply 112 vehicular parking spaces, whereas this project is proposing only 50. But given the many laws around parking and affordable housing these days, it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that this project needn’t provide the normal complement. Certainly, when it comes before the City Council (if they are the ones to consider this particular project) parking will be a topic of discussion.

Finally, we come to the issue of shadows. This is an important topic, and one that many projects are required to study and then report on. Because I was curious, I spent some time walking around the project as best I could, to understand just how many neighbors the building has, and which might be affected by shadows. Of course, I couldn’t do the calculations myself as to sun angles during different times of the year and such, so I could only get a general idea of who might possibly be directly affected in some manner.

To start, here is a satellite view (thanks to Apple Maps) of the site and some of its surroundings.

I have very roughly outlined with a dashed red line the footprint of the proposed building, which again would be 54 feet tall from the ground to the top of the roof (with a parapet on top blocking the sight of rooftop mechanical equipment; that parapet, being somewhat recessed from the edge of the building, may or may not extend the shadows). To the left (that is, in front) of the new building would be Woodside Road; shadows would not have any real effect on that street. Below (west of the new building), mostly what would be affected is a small, currently unused, drive-through coffee place. That large building with the flat gray roof that surrounds the coffee place on two sides is an existing apartment building, but shadows from the new building would mostly affect the narrow end of that building closest to the new project. What is on that end? Not much:

As best I can tell, the three small windows on the leftmost end of the building are frosted bathroom windows, as are the three small ones tucked in close to the corner in the center of the image. Only the three somewhat larger windows between the smaller ones — which appear to be either bedroom or kitchen windows — would be seriously impacted, and they, at least, are set back a fair distance from where the new building would stand.

Directly behind where the new building would stand — to the right of the outlined part in the satellite image — is an upscale housing complex that you access from Horgan Avenue (which is farther west along Woodside Road). Of the houses in that complex, only four appear likely to be affected by this project: the three that directly adjoin the project site, and a fourth that only partially adjoins the site and thus could probably see some shadows depending upon the time of day and the season of the year. In all cases what would primarily be affected are the backyards and the windows of these houses that face those backyards. Unfortunately, those backyards appear to be relatively shallow, meaning that these houses wouldn’t be all that far, distance wise, from the proposed apartment building. Then again, there are some very large trees along the property line that already cast shadows of their own:

With the one exception being the house visible in the above photo, peeking out from behind the church buildings, this new building may not actually produce much more in the way of shadows than those houses are already experiencing either from the trees or, continuing to the west, from the existing four-story apartment building you see in the above photo. So it’s possible that the only house in that complex that will see significant shadow impacts will be that one house visible in the above photo. But again, a proper shadow study would be needed to know for sure.

Lastly, to the east of the project property along Woodside Road (that is, above it in the satellite image) there is a small single-story shopping center (with Chuck’s Donuts, Cinderella Shoe Repair, and others) that will likely see some shadows at some point in the day — but surely the tenants of that center won’t care about those. Behind that center (to the right in the image) there is a U-shaped two-story apartment building (with the brown roof) that will likely see some affects, but just how much is not clear. Here is a photograph that includes just a bit of that apartment building:

In this image, the single-story mostly blank wall to the left is the shopping center. In the center of the photo, just peeking out above the shopping center, is the apartment building that would be affected. Because it is located on a flag lot accessible from Orchard Avenue, and thus sits behind some single-story homes, I was unable to get a good photo of the apartment building itself. However, from that I could see from the street it seems quite small and thus the number of residents in it affected by shadows from the new project would likely be small, too.

Certainly if I was a resident of either of the apartment buildings on either side of this project, or the somewhat high-end single-family homes behind it, I’d be less than thrilled about this new project. Hopefully a proper shadow study has been, or will be, done for this building to determine just how much those folks would be impacted, and for how long. Then the council (if indeed they are the ones to pass judgment on this proposal) can weigh those impacts, plus the parking issues and any other issues they deem relevant, against the gains to the city that 86 new apartments would bring. It should be an interesting discussion, and one I intend to follow with interest. Not that such a discussion has yet been scheduled, I should note…

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