This week I spent time east of the freeway, looking at project sites along Redwood Creek. I was interested to note that the city has quietly been working to remove the former Docktown Marina. When I was last there, there were still a handful of boats (all grouped at the easternmost end) and many of the piers themselves were still in place. Now, though, I count just two boats, one of which is a two-story floating home that is boarded up and due to either be demolished or sold off:

Although the piers for those two boats remain in place, the piers stretching from this point westward towards Highway 101 are no longer:

(The above photo is looking eastward, towards the end with the two remaining boats — boats that are just around the curve and thus are not visible here.)

Many of the posts that anchored the piers remain, as do some remnants of the structures that once retained the creek bank and may also have served as a walkway between the piers:

Presumably all of this will eventually be removed, returning the creek to a more natural state.

Just behind the creek in the above photos, the site that had been raised up to accommodate a 131-unit townhouse development continues to sit, untouched since that first bit of activity resulted in the clearing of the old buildings and parking lot, and the raising of the entire 7.8-acre development site. It has been seven years since the project was approved, but in the developer’s defense the project to construct the county’s next-door Navigation Center (visible in the above photo), which involved some nearby land swaps and the rerouting of some nearby streets (much of which was done by this project’s developer, I believe) caused at least some of the delay. And it is possible that additional delays may result from the county’s other affordable housing project that has been planned for yet another adjacent parcel, but has not yet gotten underway. In any case, I last heard that 2025 was a possible (re)starting date for the townhouse project, so I continue to keep a close eye on the site.

On the north side of the creek, where the Century Park 12 Theatres once stood — the so-called Syufy site — I watched as additional dirt was hauled to the site and spread and leveled by a grader. There, too, the site needs to be raised to protect it from future sea level rise. A good portion of the site was so raised a couple of months ago, with most of the rest seemingly having been done over the last week or two.

For now, at least, the work to raise the site seems to be done: the grader was put onto a truck and hauled away earlier this week. Although a portion of the 14+acre site remains at or near its original level, the portion closest to the Bay waters — where the two large apartment buildings will one day stand — plus the southern portion out to the street where the large “VillaSport” indoor/outdoor fitness center will go has now been raised up, presumably to its final height. Photographing the changes in height is tricky (in part because my vantage points are limited), but from the Bay side of the property you can kind-of see some areas where the soil now steps up:

Adjacent to this project’s site (at the end by the Bay), is the site of another approved project: the Townhomes at 505 E. Bayshore. That 56-unit townhouse project was approved nearly two years ago, but building permits have yet to be issued and the current occupant of the site — Alan Steel & Supply Company — continues to do business there as normal. But while walking along the Bay trail that skirts these latter two projects just this week, I was somewhat surprised to note that a portion of the Alan Steel parcel that seemingly wasn’t being used has very recently been torn up and now has a bunch of heavy equipment parked on it:

In the above you can sort-of see that the soil just beyond the fence has been chewed up and turned over, and towards the right behind the fence you should be able to just make out some of the heavy equipment. Or you can just take my word for it…

Back on the west side of the freeway, the Broadway Plaza project continues to chug along. Building 3 — the one along Bay Road that has lagged the other two — is almost completely framed up now:

And Building 1, which stretches along Broadway, is receiving its exterior finishes (which include some amount of brick, as you can see here):

I should note that the above picture is about a week old, and that as of today the brick extends farther up the face of the building.

Over on the ELCO Yards project site, the stand-alone restaurant building that is part of the project is rapidly being clad in two different colors of corrugated metal:

The silver-grey on the building’s end and roof matches the color of what was used on the office building directly behind it along Chestnut Street, although the size of the corrugation differs: on the restaurant building, the corrugations are notably smaller. The rust-colored corrugated metal covering the side of the building appears to have the same-sized corrugations as the rest of the building, differing only in color.

Here is a close-up photo that better shows those corrugations:

Although neither of the metals being used here match what was used on the original feed shed, this new building is far more attractive than the old one.

Finally, while driving our weekly Meals-on-Wheels route this week, my wife and I noticed that the tower crane was being removed from the Middlefield Junction project site (behind the Fair Oaks Health Center, along Middlefield Road just a short distance south of the Redwood City Costco store). I was unable to get photographs of the actual crane removal process, although I did go back by the site later in the day and took some pictures of the project’s progress. As you can see in the following, the building that burned while under construction is making great strides (as the removal of the tower crane indicates; if it is no longer needed, this project must be in the home stretch):

With the building almost completely insulated (using yellow insulating panels) the exterior finishes are soon to be applied.

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Last night my wife and I took some friends downtown for drinks (at City Pub) and dinner (at Cardamomo). First, though, we walked down and spent a bit of time swelling the ranks of the protesters at El Camino Real and Jefferson Avenue. Although I cannot estimate how may people showed up, the crowd extended a good portion of the way down to James Avenue, on both sides of El Camino Real (and a few opted to protest at the intersection of El Camino and James). People seemed to be having a good time and, based on the honking, there seemed to be plenty of support from the passing cars.

After the protest, and after we had a beer or two at the pub, we dropped in on Fireside Books (they’re now open seven days a week from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., except on Sundays when they close at 6 p.m.). After chatting with the proprietors and purchasing a few books (I can’t seem to get out of that place without buying at least one!), we walked down to the closed (to cars) section of Broadway, where Cardamomo is located. For a Thursday night, all of the restaurants seemed to be doing a good business: that section of Broadway in particular had plenty of people eating, drinking, or just walking by. I found it to be very encouraging. Oh, and we had a really lovely meal. If you haven’t given Cardamomo a try yet, be sure to put it on your list.

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I was very pleased to see that the Marshall Street parking garage is once again open to the public. Although work continues on Marshall Street (and, it appears, some intersecting streets) to extend the city’s system of recycled water pipelines, as of May 1 we are no longer prevented from parking in the Marshall Street garage.