Before I get into the main part of this week’s post — which involves updating you on the status of the various Redwood City Gatekeeper process projects — I wanted to provide a couple of quick updates on some smaller things I’ve been monitoring for quite some time now.

First off, the eight-unit townhouse complex at 955 Woodside Rd. is done: there is an initial open house scheduled for Saturday, March 29, from 1-4 p.m. For those not interested in actually visiting the site, the listings are finally online, and include a virtual tour.

When I walked by the site this week to take the above picture, there was still a bit of landscaping work going on, but the townhouses looked complete, and I presume that the landscaping has been wrapped up as I write this. Spec-wise, these townhouses are listed as four-bedroom, two-and-a-half-bath units (the fourth bedroom, which the purchaser may instead furnish as an office or a den, is on the ground floor along with the two-car garage). According to the plans one unit in each of the complex’s two buildings has an additional ground-floor half-bath as well, seemingly making those two units somewhat ADA-friendly. In terms of total usable floor area, the units range in size from 1,739 – 1,876 square feet, which should be a good amount of room for most interested buyers.

These for-sale condos are townhouse style units, meaning that the main floor (the middle story; up a set of stairs from the ground/garage level) contains the unit’s kitchen, dining space, and living room, plus a half bathroom. On this level there are also one or two small balconies. Then, up another set of stairs, you’ll find three bedrooms and two full bathrooms (one of which is dedicated to the largest of the three bedrooms). On this level there is also a closet equipped to handle a stacked washer and dryer.

So what are these units going to cost? Well, the one in the listing, which is one of the larger end units (the one in front, where the white truck is parked in the above photo, in fact), is going for just shy of $1.6 million, which actually seems somewhat reasonable for our area. The monthly HOA fee is currently set at $649.

The unit prices may reflect the fact that these condos are right on Woodside Road (which is busy and I imagine can be somewhat noisy) and are right next door to a car wash (it is right over the wood fence at the left in the above photo). But based on the photos in the listing, they certainly look attractive enough inside (not that the furniture shown in those pictures is included, of course). And if they were built with the necessary soundproofing, the noise from the next-door carwash and Woodside Road may not actually be much of an issue.

Next up, the AutoZone store in the old Bed, Bath and Beyond space on El Camino Real just north of Woodside Road has officially opened its doors for business:

Curiously, Redwood City’s old AutoZone, which is just a few blocks north at 901 El Camino Real (across from Sequoia High School), is still open as well; I expected it to close when this new one opened. Surely that older store will indeed close at some point; I can’t imagine our area has enough demand for automobile part stores to the point where we can support two AutoZone stores… (not to mention all of the other auto parts stores that are also along El Camino Real in Redwood City and in nearby San Carlos). In any case, there is a project planned for the site of the older store that I have to assume was the reason for AutoZone making the move to this new location.

As long as I’m covering shorter items, two art-related notices of, er, note:

• The downtown branch of the Redwood City Public Library, in collaboration with Foster Youth Museum and CASA of San Mateo County, is “celebrating the stories of foster and juvenile youth throughout April and May” by bringing the Foster Youth Museum Exhibition and programs to Redwood City. The Lost Childhoods exhibit opens on April 5, and will be followed by a variety of related events through May 20. For the full list, head over to the Redwood City Public Library’s webpage for this event. Or, to simply see the exhibit, head to the downtown library throughout the months of April and May (starting April 5).
• The Center for Creativity is hosting two evenings of “art and giving back.” On April 13 you can either “sip + stitch” — sip on drinks while creating a mini embroidery hoop cross-stitch keychain (they provide the materials and teach you how) — or “sip & color blooms” — sip drinks while learning to draw and then watercolor a beautiful floral bloom. On April 15, you can again “sip + stitch”, or you can “sip & paint”: sip drinks while learning how to create your own 8×10 landscape painting. Both evenings will be held in the Center for Creativity’s current home: the ground floor of the Hotel Sequoia at the corner of Broadway and Main Street. Only a limited number of people can be accommodated, so don’t delay: head to their EventBrite page to register. The cost is $55 (plus taxes and fees, for a total of $60.54) per person — but 100% of all proceeds go directly to the Center for Creativity.

So. Gatekeeper Process projects. As you may or may not recall, back in 2021 or so, Redwood City received a flood of preliminary submissions for projects that would each require an amendment to the city’s General Plan and/or Downtown Precise Plan. Rather than handle them one at a time, the city elected to set up a so-called “Gatekeeper” process in which the city would take a high-level look at each of the proposed projects, and then decide which seemed worthy of consideration for the necessary amendments. The intent was then to make the necessary amendments to accommodate all of the ones deemed worthy, and then create a Subsequent Environmental Impact Report (SEIR) that would identify how all of the projects, if built, would impact downtown Redwood City and how those impacts could or could not be mitigated.

The city’s Gatekeeper process was completed in June of 2023, with the SEIR being certified. That process paved the way for the projects to then be submitted through the city’s normal approval process (although it did allow developers to skip having to create individual EIRs for those projects that accounted for when the SEIR was created, which is a big leg up). Since then, the eight projects that made it through the process have been mostly working towards approval. What follows are those eight projects, presented in what I’m calling a “Now & When” format. This format is along the lines of the Then & Now books that show an old picture of a particular location followed by a present-day picture of the same location (I often refer to my copy of “Redwood City Then & Now,” which I purchased from the gift shop at the San Mateo County History Museum, in downtown Redwood City’s Courthouse Square). Here, though, I’m showing the Now picture, followed by what the site would look like when (if) the proposed project is built, thanks to renderings provided by the various developers. I’m also providing a brief description of the project, plus, following the “When” picture, the current status of the project proposal.

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1205-1295 Veterans

This is a large mixed-use project proposed for the 5.3-acre site of the Veterans Square shopping center (where Hoot Judkins Furniture is located). The development would contain 409 for-rent apartments, 70 of which would be offered at below-market rates. It would include 5,600 square feet of retail space, plus a 5,300 square foot childcare center.

So far, the developer has not submitted a complete application to the city. Until they do, this project cannot even be considered for approval.

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651 El Camino Real

Today the site of American Legion Post #105’s hall, the proposed project calls for a six-story building containing a new American Legion hall (which could also be rented for City and private functions), veteran support offices, and a parking garage on the first two floors. The upper four floors would contain 135 affordable housing units and one manager’s unit.

The Redwood City Council is tentatively scheduled to review this project at its regular meeting on April 14. This project is being submitted under CA SB423, which requires it to be subject to a “streamlined, ministerial approval process.” Basically, that means that the city is limited in how it could deny the project. Which I suspect it wouldn’t do anyway, given our area’s desperate need for affordable housing and given how underutilized the site currently is.

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505 E. Bayshore

This project would replace the Alan Steel & Supply Company facilities, located near the east end of Whipple Avenue, with a 56-unit townhouse complex. Twenty of those townhouses would be grouped into three buildings that would face directly out over Bair Island. The remainder would be located in one of six buildings, each containing six townhouses, that would be behind and end-on to the ones facing the wetlands.

This project was approved by the Redwood City Council on June 26, 2023. So far, though, a building permit has yet to be issued.

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901-999 El Camino Real

The 901 El Camino project consists of two parts. The main one is a six-story, 305,000-square-foot office building with an internal 6,500-square-foot teen center (the site, currently occupied by AutoZone, an empty frozen yogurt shop building, and a small taqueria, is located directly across the street from Sequoia High School). Then, over at 920 Shasta St., an existing self-storage operation would be replaced by a five-story affordable housing building containing 99 affordable apartments and one manager’s unit, plus a 72-space parking garage (using mechanical stackers to squeeze those 72 cars into a relatively small ground-floor garage).

This project has not yet been approved, but it, too, is on the City Council’s preliminary docket: both the office building/teen center and the affordable housing project are tentatively scheduled to be the subject of public hearings at the Council’s April 28 meeting.

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2300 Broadway

Like 901 El Camino, this project, too, consists of a large office building (this one, to replace the Chase Bank building in downtown Redwood City) plus a stand-alone affordable housing project to be located at 609 Price Ave. (near the DMV). As currently proposed, the eight-story office building would contain about 180,000 square feet of office space, plus roughly 13,000 square feet of ground-floor retail. The building would sit atop a two-level subterranean parking garage with stalls for 237 vehicles. As for the affordable housing building, that would replace a small office building and would consist of a six-story apartment building with 98 affordable housing units. Given its relatively close proximity to transit, the affordable housing building isn’t required to provide any tenant parking. However, as planned the building would include an internal parking garage with 40 stalls.

The developer’s application for this project is not yet complete. Thus, it is not in a state to be considered for approval by the city.

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603 Jefferson/750 Bradford

As currently proposed, this project would replace the one-story building in the center of the above photo plus the two story building above it (which today is home to the Redwood City School District offices) with a mixed-use development that would contain 108 housing units (48 of which would be affordable, in this case for RCSD staff) plus 108,000 square feet of office space. An abundance of parking would be provided in a two-level subterranean garage.

The developer’s application for this project has been deemed complete. As far as I know it has not yet been scheduled for consideration by either the Redwood City Planning Commission or City Council..

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1900 Broadway

Today, 1900 Broadway is the former site of Wells Fargo Bank, which some years ago relocated to the corner of Jefferson Avenue and Broadway. The proposed project, which would involve alterations to the angled Marshall Street/Broadway connector (Spring Street) and would incorporate part of the triangular “parklet” just across that section of Spring Street, would see the construction of a seven-story mixed-use building. The building would consist primarily of office space, but would also have two nice-sized ground floor retail spaces. And, there would be an open public plaza at the Main Street/Broadway corner (shown above). Finally, a separate affordable housing building would be constructed at 847 Woodside Rd., where today there is a church operating out of a building that previously housed a mortuary. It would contain 71 affordable apartments plus a manager’s unit. An internal parking garage would have space for 57 vehicles and 86 bicycles.

The Redwood City Council approved both parts of this project on October 28, 2024. The developer has yet to apply for building permits, but then again it is rather soon; it is likely to take a year and a half to two years after project approval for a project of this magnitude to be ready to apply for a permit. And the developer will only apply for the needed permits and then build the project if they think they’ll be able to actually lease much of the space in the building. Thus, the fate of this particular project will depend upon the state of the economy and the projected local demand for office space at the time the building would be completed (which would, I’m guessing, be in 2029 or 2030).

601 Allerton

I’m including this project on the list for completeness: it was one of the original eight projects that the City Council used to guide its amendments to the city’s General Plan and its Downtown Precise Plan. But the project proposed for this site — a five-story office building with a small public-facing restaurant/cafe on the ground floor, a two-level subterranean parking garage (plus a small amount of parking on the ground floor) and, on the flat rooftop, two publicly accessible Futsal courts and a small clubhouse — was subsequently withdrawn by the developer, and thus it won’t be built. Which is too bad; as proposed it was an attractive building that made far better use of the site than what stands there today:

I hope you enjoyed my little tour of Redwood City, Now & When. Have a great weekend!