I’ve been wondering for months why, after it was damaged by a fire, the main building of the Rise City Church on Middlefield Road hasn’t been repaired. When construction fencing went up around the building a week or two ago, I assumed that the repairs were finally about to get underway. But then my wife and I drove by the church while making our weekly Meals on Wheels deliveries, and saw this:

The fire, which was started by a cigarette tossed into a planter box in front of the church, damaged the church building to the point where it was not safe for worship. Although insurance funds would cover some of the damage, rather than simply repair the building, the church leadership instead opted to explore a project on a much larger scale. In early 2022 church members voted to sell the “Bethlehem A.D.” lot directly across the street (which was owned by the church), and authorize the process of designing and constructing an all-new church building, which is now underway. Although it sounds like the church doesn’t yet have all of the needed funds in hand, it apparently has enough to get started and are confident that the remaining funds will materialize as the 12-16 month project progresses.

Rise City Church has a long history in Redwood City. The church considers 1930 to be the year when it was officially established, but the church has roots here that go back as far as 1924, when the “Pentecostal Baptist Mission” began meeting in a second-story storefront at Broadway and Main, in the long-gone (due to a fire, as is the case with so many historic buildings in Redwood City) Wahl Building. Over the years the church met in a variety of locations and had a variety of names (most recently, it was “Tapestry Church”). In 1942 the church settled in at its present location, and it has been there ever since.

The church, which is located at 1305 Middlefield Rd. (at the corner of Middlefield and Cassia Street) until very recently looked like this:

In its new incarnation, though, it will look quite different. Here is a rendering provided by the architect, showing what the new building will look like from Middlefield Road:

And here is another view of the building, showing its main entrance (which I assume will be from the parking lot, to the right of the building as viewed from Middlefield Road):

Very impressive. I’m glad to see that the church appears to be doing relatively well; so many are short on funds and are in search of new members these days.

As for the “Bethlehem A.D.” property the church sold in order to help pay for its new church building, I’ve written about that project in the past, but in short just over a year ago the city approved a project from Sand Hill Property Company to build a seven-story 100% affordable apartment building on the site. That building will have a total of 94 for-rent apartments ranging in size from studios to two-bedroom units. Parking — there will be 47 stalls, five of which will be equipped with EV chargers — will be accommodated by an internal parking garage on the first and second floors of the building. The second floor will also have a handful of apartments, the rest of which will be on the floors above.

Here is a rendering of what this new affordable housing project should look like:

From the rendering you might get the idea that this will be a large monolithic block, but in reality, above the two-level “podium” containing the parking garage and that handful of apartments, the building will be split in two — between the two brick-colored blocks you can see in the above rendering. On the fourth and seventh floors enclosed bridges will knit the two pieces together, making passage between the two halves somewhat easy. And while the portion along Cassia Street will run the full depth of the property, the other portion is only about half that deep, leaving room behind it on the third level for a private landscaped courtyard. No rooftop decks on this project: the rooftops are to be strictly utilitarian, and largely covered with solar panels.

Elsewhere in the city, I’m pleased to report that although some interior spaces are still being finished up, the county’s newest office building — COB 3 — is largely occupied and is open for business. This building is located at 555 Marshall Street, but is also known as 500 County Center.

Because it is open, I was able to walk inside the lobby, which is impressive, to say the least:

I love all of the exposed wood, which hints at the unique construction methods used for this building: nearly all of the structural elements are made of wood, rather than the usual steel. Known as Mass Timber Construction, this allows for faster and more sustainable construction. I only regret that the building’s exterior had to be clad in glass, metal, and stone, entirely covering the beautiful wood structure inside. But the result is a beautiful building both inside and out.

Because this is an office building, most of it is not open to the general public, and like some of the other county buildings access to those parts of the building are gated by a security guard and metal detectors. However, the chambers where the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors meet will be open to the public; I’ll make it a point to attend one of their meetings in the near future both to watch them work in person and to see those chambers look and function. For now, though, I contented myself with a view of the doors to those chambers, which are right off the lobby:

Directly across Marshall Street, the site for the new Taube Family Carriage House and Automobile Museum has been cleared (previously, it was a small parking lot) and some digging has apparently been done:

And speaking of digging, over on Brewster Avenue and Veterans Boulevard, at the site of the Hyatt Place hotel project, a handful of large holes have been dug to accommodate the elevators (which need some space below the elevator’s lowest level, even though the cars don’t go any lower than the ground floor) and the car stackers that will be used to squeeze 71 vehicles into the hotel’s “ground-floor” garage:

Over on Redwood City’s “restaurant row” (on Broadway), after five and a half years in operation Kasa Indian Eatery has closed (they still have two locations in San Francisco, however). Their former location in Redwood City was quickly snapped up, and is in the process of being transformed into Nomadic Kitchen, a Turkish restaurant.

Across the street, and down just a bit, Ralphs Vacuum & Sewing Center has a “we’ve moved” sign up — but don’t rush off to their new location just yet: it appears that they aren’t actually moving until (they hope) July 1.

Longtime readers may recall that Ralph’s, who only moved to their current Broadway location (in the Hotel Sequoia building) as a temporary step between their former location, on Main Street, and what they had intended to be their new location, in Woodside Plaza, had been looking forward to their move ever since they signed their lease on the Woodside Plaza site right around the beginning of 2020. But complications with remodeling the space in Woodside Plaza — which formerly housed a dry cleaner — have kept that project from being completed, and so it seems that at long last Ralph has given up and opted to go elsewhere. Thus, their soon-to-be new location at 1823 El Camino Real, just across the parking lot (and across little Pine Street) from Harry’s Hofbrau:

Their new home looks to be a nice, large space, giving them plenty of room show off the sewing machines, vacuum cleaners, and air purifiers (plus all of the accessories that go along with them) that they have for sale, plus room for the shop in which they repair those household machines. Plus, there appear to be racks of fabric inside their new store, and so they may once again be doing more than just selling and fixing sewing machines and vacuums (and, these days, air purifiers). Oh, and just as their Main Street location had convenient parking behind the shop, so, too, does this building:

But be aware that you need to enter the parking lot from Pine Street, and that Pine is a one-way street running from Main Street to El Camino Real. Thus, to get to the parking lot you’ll need to come down Main Street, turn on Pine, and then turn into the parking lot. When exiting you can only turn right out of the parking lot and then turn right (northbound) on El Camino Real.

The project to extend the recycled water pipeline to the ELCO Yards site(s) has advanced all the way along Walnut Street to Stambaugh Street:

I’ll be interested to see what route they take from there. I’m guessing Maple Street.

On the subject of ELCO Yards, many of you have undoubtedly seen that the building out on El Camino Real (at Chestnut Street) is already being clad using pre-built panels with brick facings:

I spent some time watching the operation at work. The panels are simply bolted (from behind) to brackets attached to the building’s structural beams. Today those panels are only loosely attached, and thus appear misaligned; I assume the intent is to get them all roughly installed as quickly as possible, after which they’ll go back and align them and tighten the attachment bolts. The panels are presumably heavy, thus necessitating the use of the tower crane to swing each one roughly into position. Then, workers inside the building wrestle the panel into place and then attach the bolts:

At this rate, windows should be getting installed very soon now…

Down at the corner of Broadway and Woodside Road, work on the massive (mostly) underground parking garage and the three buildings that will stand atop it at the Chestnut Street end of the Broadway Plaza project continue apace. But this week I noticed that the old CVS Pharmacy building on the Woodside Road end of the site has finally been demolished:

(This picture was taken from Bay Road near Woodside Road; from here you would have seen the backside of the building.) As you can probably tell, the building’s concrete foundation is still in place, but that’ll surely be torn up soon.

Finally, the “Brick Monkey” sign has at long last been removed from above their former storefront at the corner of Broadway and Winslow Street:

Given that Brick Monkey closed this store in late 2017, and that no one has occupied the space since then, it seems well past time. In any case, assuming that the removal of this sign was intentional (how could it not?) and given that the signs indicating that the space was for rent seem to have disappeared from the windows, I’m crossing my fingers and hoping that a new tenant is at long last moving into this prime Broadway location. Just who that might be, though, we’ll have to wait and see. Hopefully it is a retailer or a restaurant (or perhaps that video game enterprise that at one time was hoping to occupy the space), and not another white-collar firm such as Neuberger Berman, who apparently is occupying space on the upper floor of the building, where Evernote used to be located.

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Looking for some way to commemorate Memorial Day? Look no further than Redwood City’s own Union Cemetery, just west of El Camino Real along Woodside Road. On Memorial Day, Monday, May 27, beginning at 10 a.m. there will be “patriotic speeches, music, the decorating of graves and the traditional anvil firing as we gather to honor our Soldiers.” Bring the kids — they’ll certainly enjoy (and remember) the anvil firing, if nothing else…