In some ways a “year in review” column seem as if it should be simple to write: I don’t have to gather any new information, and I don’t necessarily even have to include any photographs. Although I have pretty much everything I need in the blog posts and newspaper columns I wrote throughout the year, going through all of those takes a surprising amount of time. With that done, I then have to decide how to organize everything. So what on the surface seems to be one of the easiest blog posts to write turns out to take longer than any regular post. But I think the effort is worth it: seeing nearly every significant event (to my eyes; I don’t cover some subjects, such as politics) that happened throughout the year in one place serves to reinforce the fact that Redwood City continues to change at an astounding pace. Which is something that I was starting to wonder about over the course of this year; it initially seemed like a fairly quiet one. But although 2024 in some ways was indeed a bit quieter than some previous years, compared with most other Bay Area cities Redwood City’s pace of change remains at or near the top of the heap.

Much of the activity this year concerned projects that were already underway at the beginning of the year, and remained underway at the end:

• ELCO Yards made great progress; at this point all four office buildings are fully framed and have most of their exterior skins. Toward the end of the year the small restaurant building that will stand near the corner of Main and Chestnut streets began construction, and beginning in mid-year the extension of Redwood City’s system of recycled water pipelines to the ELCO Yards project site got underway.
• The three residential buildings that form half of the Broadway Plaza development made great progress this year, with one of the three (the fully affordable building fronting Chestnut Street) having received its windows and exterior skin; another (the large building along Broadway) getting fully framed (almost); and the third (which faces Bay Road) now well into the framing stage. Related to this project, the new CVS just across Woodside Road opened early in 2024, after which the old one, on the Broadway Plaza project site, was demolished.
• Work on the new Veterans Memorial Building/Senior Center, which was to be completed in 2024, proceeded slower than planned, the city now aims to open it to the public sometime in the second half of 2025. The building made a fair amount of progress throughout the past year, however, and is looking really good, at least from the outside. I did get a chance to tour the building back in March and came away excited to see the finished project.
• 955 Woodside, an 8-unit townhouse project, appeared to be nearly, but not quite, done by the end of 2024.
• The small five-unit townhouse project underway at 239 Vera Ave. continues to be underway.
• The rebuild of the Bravo Taqueria building and its next-door neighbor (that used to house 5th Quarter Pizza) on Woodside Road continued throughout the year.

A number of projects finished up in 2024:

• San Mateo County’s County Office Building #3 (COB3 for short) wrapped up in 2024, and various county employees, along with the Board of Supervisors, moved in.
• Nearby, the project to transform a portion of the Old Maguire jail facility in downtown Redwood City (at 330 Bradford St.) into the County Sheriff’s Office Headquarters wrapped up. That space is now occupied.
• The seven townhouses built at 31 Center St. appear to have been completed in 2024, although when I last visited there wasn’t a “for sale” sign up yet.
• 200 Twin — the curvaceous glass building at 200 Twin Dolphin Dr. — seems to have wrapped up after a little less than two years of construction.
• The small two-story office building at 1390 Woodside Rd. is either done, or so close to it that I’m finally going to call this one. The project got underway in August of 2021, and is certainly among the slowest projects built in Redwood City in recent years.
• The unusual quarter-round-shaped building next to the 7-11 on Broadway was remodeled in 2024, and the local Social Security office moved in from their former digs at 601 Allerton St.
• The project to install moving bollards at the end of Theatre Way near the Box buildings finally wrapped up. Shortly thereafter, work got underway at the other end of Theatre Way to install a similar set of bollards.
• Flor Redwood City, a retailer of cannabis products, wrapped up their building on El Camino Real and opened for business.
• The transformation of a historic house at 1417 Middlefield Rd. into a duplex plus an internal ADU appears to have finished up in 2024. And related to that project, the construction of a more modern-looking duplex plus an ADU above an all-new garage on the next-door parcel (which was split off from 1417 Middlefield Rd.) got underway last year.
• Kaiser Permanente completed their project to turn the space formerly occupied by their old hospital building and one of their smaller medical office buildings into a nicely landscaped parking lot plus a small children’s play area.

A handful of new projects got underway during the past year:

• The four-story, 91-room hotel project being built at the corner of Veterans Boulevard and Brewster Avenue broke ground in 2024. I should note here that Redwood City’s other proposed hotel project, a similar-sized building to replace the Garden Motel along Broadway, likely isn’t going to happen.
• The transformation of the Gold Star Market space on Woodside Road at Central Avenue into Redwood City’s sixth cannabis products retailer (“Element 7”) began in earnest in 2024.
• The construction of an all-new McDonald’s restaurant on Woodside Road to replace the one that was damaged by fire back in 2023 both got underway and was completed in 2024, with the restaurant opening its doors just before the close of the year.
• Chick-Fil-A, on Whipple Avenue near Veterans Boulevard, reworked its drive-thru in 2024 to accommodate more cars and, hopefully, to cut down on the traffic backups along Whipple Avenue (and, sometimes, along Veterans Boulevard).
• The Taube Family Carriage House & Automobile Gallery began construction on a small former parking lot behind the historic courthouse.
• Rise City Church began construction on their new sanctuary building at the corner of Middlefield Road and Cassia Street.
• The project to rebuild the sidewalk along the Maple Street overpass (over Highway 101) and to add protective fencing on both sides of the overpass was both started and completed in 2024.
• The Roosevelt Avenue Traffic Calming Project got underway this past year, with a “quick build” version of the project having been installed.
• The project to construct two large apartment buildings (containing a total of 480 apartments) and a VillaSport sport club on the former site of the Century Park 12 Theatres along East Bayshore Road finally got underway, with the demolition of the theater building and its parking lot, and the subsequent effort to raise the entire site to a height deemed suitable to withstand some degree of sea-level rise (that work its still ongoing). Presumably, construction of the actual buildings themselves will get underway in 2025.

The city approved a relatively small number of notable projects in 2024, but all but the first two are large enough that, if built, will notably impact Redwood City:

• 77 Birch Street, a nine-unit for-sale townhouse project.
• Redwood Square, a six-unit for-sale townhouse project to be constructed along Linden Street between Hazel and Hemlock avenues.
• 1900 Broadway: a seven-story, mixed-use (office and retail) building slated for the former Wells Fargo Bank site at Main Street and Broadway.
• 847 Woodside Rd.: a five-story, 72-unit for-rent affordable apartment building. The land for this project would be provided by the developer of 1900 Broadway as one of the public benefits for that office/retail project.
• The “two-faced” 6-story, 91-unit for-sale condominium building to be built at 590 Veterans Blvd. and 91 Winslow St.

Redwood City received some interesting — perhaps controversial in some cases — proposals for new projects in 2024. These include:

• 112 Vera Ave., a seven-story, fully affordable apartment building to replace ten half-built duplex units just behind Firestone Complete Auto Care (which is on El Camino Real). This project would have no resident parking.
• 1800 Broadway/910 Marshall, which would see a 313-unit senior residential care facility built on three parcels close to Redwood City’s Kaiser Permanente campus. As currently proposed this building would be 30 stories (350 feet) tall.
• A proposal for a 105-unit townhouse development to replace the retail spaces along Walnut Street between Veterans Boulevard and Kohl’s (Kohl’s would not be affected).
• The new YMCA that is slated to replace the old Veterans Memorial Building/Senior Center in Red Morton Park. This proposal is in the early stages; I believe that the funds to construct this new building have yet to be secured.
• A 32-unit condominium project ostensibly planned for 1320 Marshall St. (the face of the development would actually look out onto Broadway).

Before I move on to the subject of restaurants (which are a major part of Redwood City’s image these days), a few final notes about development activity over the past year:

• In January I noticed a project proposal sign at 925 Charter Street, but the project never appeared on the city’s online list of projects. Whether or not this project by The Sobrato Organization to construct a small two-story office building next to the new CVS pharmacy is still alive, I have no idea.
• The plans to redesign Hoover Park were finalized, although no actual work has commenced.
• The proposed project to completely change the Sequoia Station shopping center into an office/residential development with retail on the ground floor of some of the planned multi-story buildings was shelved when the project owner/developer sold their portion of Sequoia Station to a new company. That new company has vowed to spruce up the existing center and fill the empty spaces while considering their longer-term plans. Recently the center’s buildings have started getting repainted.
• As I noted earlier, to the best of my knowledge the plans to construct a Hyatt Place Hotel on the current site of the 18-room Garden Motel (at 1690 Broadway) have been shelved.
• The Arguello Street Mixed-Use (office and residential) project planned for the former A-1 Rentals site along Arguello Street close to Whipple Avenue was withdrawn.
• The previously approved (in 2023) six-story office/residential building planned for 1201 Main St. has been transferred to a different developer, who has reworked the project to the point where it’ll need to go back through the city’s approval process. So that project, which would replace the building formerly occupied by Wings Learning Center near where Main and Maple streets split, won’t be built any time soon.
• The design for the park that is slated to occupy the small parking lot by the library at the corner of Main Street and Middlefield Road, plus the green space next to the library, plus a small portion of the parking lot behind the library, are pretty much final. With any luck construction on this new downtown park will commence sometime in 2025.
• In 2024 Redwood City saw the construction of a short segment of bicycle lane along El Camino Real, from Maple Street to Jefferson Avenue (but only on the north side of El Camino).

As for restaurant news, there was a lot to report in 2024 (is anyone surprised?):

• Early in the year The Baker Next Door began fitting out their space at 855 Main St. They opened for business in August.
• Bloomsgiving (a flower shop and café) opened in the old Joe & The Juice space at 893 Winslow St.
• Mazra (a Mediterranean BBQ and tapas restaurant) opened at 2021 Broadway in April. Then, in June, they had a kitchen fire and had to close. Repairs and kitchen upgrades to improve fire safety took longer than expected, but by October Mazra had reopened. Shortly after that, they constructed a more formal outdoor seating area on Broadway.
• The Yard Coffeehouse opened at 1018 Main Street, and has been hosting a number of events and featuring a variety of guest businesses.
• Ocean Oyster Bar & Grill did not open in 2024 as planned, but finally seems to be close to doing so. You’ll find them in the old Spaghetti Factory space, on the corner of Broadway and Jefferson Avenue.
• Cafe La Tartine closed in 2024, but was quickly replaced by Das Bierhauz, a German biergarten.
• Hikari Sushi (along Whipple Avenue at El Camino Real) was replaced by Burma Spice, a Burmese restaurant.
• Kasa Indian Eatery (on Broadway) was replaced by Nomadic Kitchen, a restaurant serving Turkish cuisine.
• Varam Indian Cuisine opened in the old Dragon Theatre space on Broadway (at 2120 Broadway).
• Yokohama Sushi (on Broadway) transformed into Bao Redwood City. Bao specializes in serving hand-crafted Chinese dumplings.
• Directly across from Bao, in the space formerly occupied by Sushirrito, Pizzeria Cardamomo began serving authentic Italian pizza and pasta late in the year.
• Cravingz (a place for dessert) opened at 826 Main St.
• Local Kitchens, a ghost kitchen making and serving dishes from a variety of Bay Area restaurants, opened in the Bay Club building along Redwood Shores Parkway.
• Applebee’s closed its doors in Redwood City.
• Limón, a restaurant serving Peruvian food, finally opened its doors in the old Arya Steakhouse spot at the end of Theatre Way.
• Baires Bakery & Café — an Argentinian style bakery — opened in the old Brick Monkey space at the corner of Winslow Street and Broadway.
• Nagai Edomae Sushi is new and open at 2074 Broadway.
• Eats Meets West Bowls is now serving bowls that contain a fusion of Indian and Panamanian flavors in one of the live/work spaces in the 201 Marshall St. building (at the far end on the Arguello Street side).
• The everything corn Maizz finally opened in the old Signarama space at the corner of El Camino Real and Winklebleck Street, just south of Broadway.

Finally, a smattering of retail news for the year:

• Ralph’s Vacuum & Sewing Center finally found a long-term home, at 1823 El Camino Real.
• Campbell Men’s Barbershop opened in the old Kristi Marie’s space, at the corner of Arguello and Marshall streets. A number of barber shops seemed to have opened throughout the city, in fact; I simply couldn’t keep track of them all…
• Flames Smoke Shop opened at the corner of El Camino Real and Whipple Avenue.
• Taormina Motorsports took over the building on Convention Way where Undisputed Boxing Gym used to be located. For their part, Undisputed Boxing Gym now seems to be located at the end of Theatre Way, opposite the Box buildings.
• Autozone has been prepping for its move down the street to the former Bed, Bath & Beyond space on El Camino Real (just up from Woodside Road). Eventually their current building is slated to be torn down to make way for a six-story office building with an internal teen center (the site is located just across the street from Sequoia High School). That project, however, has yet to be approved by the city.
• Swing Central Golf Club opened at 1802 El Camino Real.
• Madison Ave clothing on Theatre Way closed their doors in 2024.

If all that isn’t enough, 2024 was the year that Caltrain went electric, and ferries were run to and from select Giants games as a way to “test the waters” on a potential new ferry commute service operating out of the Port of Redwood City. Also, Caltrans undertook a project to add curb ramps to the sidewalks along Woodside Road, repave the street, and, I believe, remove much of the parking along that street to make way for new bike lanes. And although not strictly in Redwood City, 2024 is the year that the county’s large affordable housing project being constructed at Middlefield Junction (just south of the Redwood City Costco, along Middlefield Road) experienced a devastating fire that set that project back considerably. Fortunately, the damage was cleaned up and construction soon began again, so that much needed housing is still coming to our area.

That is a very long list! And I expect I’ll have no trouble finding things in Redwood City to write about each week in 2025. So stay tuned!