Often, one of the hardest things about writing this blog is coming up with a title for the post. Sometimes a title just hits me, but more often I have to give some thought to the various items I plan to write about, and then try to find a title that relates. Complicating things is the fact that I don’t re-use titles: as much as I’d like to repeat one from time-to-time, each of my 560 blog posts (counting this one) has a unique title.

This week’s title refers to the project that excited me most this week: the “Syufy Site” project at 557 E. Bayshore Rd. Last time I wrote about it, the site was still being raised up to protect it from sea level rise. Now, though, work is very much underway to build two large apartment buildings and a Villa Sport fitness center on the former theater site.

Allow me to present a bit of history. On June 14, 1961, the gates at 557 E. Bayshore Rd. opened for the first time to allow cars to enter Redwood City’s new Redwood Drive-In theater. Built by Syufy Enterprises of San Francisco, the single-screen outdoor theater accommodated 1,300 cars. The drive-in may have only had just one screen, but it was a monster, at 90 feet tall and 130 feet wide. Syufy claimed that this screen was the tallest outdoor movie screen in the world at the time (it probably helped that the bottom of the screen was positioned 30 feet off the ground, enabling cars in the back row to see the film). In addition to the screen and its attendant projection booth, the theater boasted a huge cinder-block snack bar and an outdoor playground to keep children amused while theatergoers waited for darkness.

Sometime in the 1970’s, three additional (somewhat smaller) screens were added to the drive-in, along with a new projection booth to service those additional screens. The drive-in continued in this configuration until the end of summer in 1987, when the theater closed, and work soon began to demolish the four screens and their supporting buildings. They were replaced by the Century Park 12 Theaters, a 12-screen indoor theater complex that opened to theatergoers in October of 1989.

Fast-forward to December of 2003, when the city held its groundbreaking for the “On Broadway” project that would eventually house today’s Century 20 Downtown Redwood City theaters. Right about that time, Syufy Enterprises proposed its “Bayside Gardens Project” for the site of the still-operating Century Park 12 theaters. According to the draft Environmental Impact Report for that project, Syufy was hoping to replace their bay-side theater complex with “approximately 600 rental apartments and associated recreational facilities (e.g., recreation center, two swimming pools, sports court, and play lawns), plus approximately 8,300 square feet of ground-floor retail floor area fronting on East Bayshore Road.” Because Redwood City preferred to see an automobile dealership on the site, Redwood City and Syufy in April of 2005 entered into negotiations on the fate of the site.

In July of 2006, the “On Broadway” building opened its doors at Broadway and Jefferson in downtown Redwood City. The building contains 20 theaters containing a total of 4,200 seats, plus 85,000 square feet of retail space. Just two weeks after the building opened, Syufy Enterprises and Cinemark announced that they had entered into a definitive purchase agreement under which Cinemark would purchase all outstanding stock of Century Theaters, Inc. from the Syufy family (by that time, Syufy’s Century Theaters, Inc. consisted of 78 theaters totaling 994 screens in 12 western states). The deal closed later in 2006. Although the deal included the downtown theaters, the deal apparently did not include the land beneath the Century Park 12 theaters.

Although the downtown theaters were in operation, the Century Park 12 also continued to show popular films, purportedly against the city’s wishes. Many saw this as a way for Syufy Enterprises to put pressure on the city to approve their development proposal for their E. Bayshore site. Whatever the reasons, in September of 2007 negotiations between Syufy Enterprises and Redwood City came to an impasse. The Century Park 12 theaters continued to operate for yet another year, finally closing in October of 2008. After that the building sat, apparently unused, until last June, when demolition finally got underway. (The parking lot continued to be used for years by nearby automobile dealerships to store inventory, and it hosted a seasonal pumpkin patch in 2023.)

In October of 2015, SyWest Development (a division of Syufy Enterprises) again submitted a proposal to Redwood City for a mixed-use development on the site. This proposal — which went through a number of modifications over the years — was finally accepted in December of 2022, more than seven years after it was proposed. Then, about eighteen months later — in June of 2024 — heavy equipment moved in and a large portion of the parking lot was demolished. In October, demolition of the theater buildings, along with the remainder of the parking lot, got underway. Throughout, soil was brought in and the site was gradually raised to a height deemed safe from some measure of future sea level rise. Then, it sat, giving some time for the new soil to compact.

That’s where things stood until a week or two ago, when heavy equipment was again brought in. Today, the site is an active place, with tractors, backhoes, and soil drills all working various parts of the site:

(The above view is from the bay side of the property, looking back towards downtown Redwood City.) Trailers to serve as construction offices have also been brought in:

From E. Bayshore, the site is a bit easier to see, although when I was there most of the work was taking place at the far end of the property:

On future visits, I’ll take a longer lens to try and get a closer look at the action.

I’ve written a lot about this project before, but to recap, the approved project consists of two large five-story buildings out towards the bay that combined will contain 480 for-rent apartments (85 of which will be affordable at the Very Low, Low, or Moderate income levels). The apartments in these two buildings will wrap around internal parking garages that in total will have space for more than 750 vehicles (there will also be 345 parking spaces in surface lots).

Closer to E. Bayshore Road will be the two-level, nearly 97,000-square-foot Villa Sport athletic club and spa building. It will sport four pools (two indoor, two outdoor), exercise studios, relaxation lounges, a day spa, large children’s indoor and outdoor play areas, locker rooms, and an indoor and outdoor café. This facility will be open to the public: one need not live in the adjacent apartment buildings in order to become a member.

It has taken roughly 20 years for this project to get from its initial proposal — as Bayside Gardens, in the beginning of 2004 — to the start of actual construction. That may be a record, and certainly shows incredible patience and persistence on the part of Syufy Enterprises. This project is likely to take three years or so to complete, so it’ll be a while before the apartments will be leasing and the athletic club will be open for business. But the project is now well and truly underway!

While I was circling the site, I noticed some work going on next door, at 505 E. Bayshore Rd. This is the current site of Alan Steel, which is slated to be replaced by a 56-unit townhouse project. Behind the Alan Steel buildings there was an open piece of land that used to hold racks of steel pipe and various other objects made of steel. Some time ago that part of the property was completely cleared, and this week I watched as a backhoe dug and raised up sides for a long, narrow closed-ended ditch — something like a retention pond:

[click the image to get one you can zoom in on]

Whether this is preliminary work being done for the townhouse project, or whether this is not at all connected to that project but instead is something that will be used by Alan Steel, I can’t decide. I did note a number of heavy timbers stacked up behind the metal building at the far right end of the above picture. Perhaps they’ll be used as part of this project, or perhaps they had been used to keep large pieces of steel off the ground, and have nothing to do with the current digging project:

Either way, the close proximity of this project to SyWest Development’s project (the two parcels touch in the rear) gives me two reasons to visit the site each week for some time to come.

Elsewhere, I walked by Jardin de Ninõs park this week to observe the progress on the park expansion project. The metal bandstand itself hasn’t changed from my last visit, but great progress has been made on the ground around it. Where the paths will go can now clearly be seen, and holes for some new trees have been dug:

And down Chestnut Street from this park, the stand-alone restaurant building that is part of the ELCO Yards project is looking great:

Related to this building, the sinuous white concrete benches that I had observed in a previous visit are clearly sitting on concrete foundations, indicating that they are in their final locations. They will dot the triangular open public plaza that will be located at the corner of Main and Chestnut streets.

Elsewhere in the ELCO Yards project, I was delighted to note that the construction fences around Building B, which is located at the corner of El Camino Real and Cedar Street, are gone at last:

While fences continue to surround the project’s other buildings, their removal here allowed me to get a closer look at some aspects of this one building. In particular, I was able to peek over the protective fencing around that building’s childcare center outdoor play area:

The above picture shows the Lathrop Street end of the play area. The far end, out towards El Camino Real, contains a couple of planter boxes where the kids will presumably be able to learn some basic gardening skills:

(They’re tucked in behind that tree and thus, except for the left-hand one, are a bit hard to see from this angle.)

I was also able to walk a short way down Lathrop Street, along the rear of building B, to get a better look at the oddly shaped rear portion of Building C, which stands at the corner of Main and Cedar streets:

I just love the varying designs of the buildings in this development, and am looking forward to the day that Lathrop Street is once again fully open, and therefore available for me to walk along.

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Tomorrow, May 31, Red Morton Park will be hosting the first of four “Pub in the Park” events. In addition to the inflatable pub — from which you can “sip a refreshing pint from local microbreweries, or enjoy a variety of delicious ciders and seltzers on tap” (for a fee, of course) — you can purchase food from local food trucks, play games and enjoy a free bluegrass concert. Bring your lawn chairs and/or blankets, along with friends and loved ones to Red Morton Park, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. For more information, the additional Pub in the Park dates and the bands that are scheduled to play, head to the event web page.

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On Wednesday, June 4, from 2 – 6 p.m., the Sandpiper Youth Club will be unveiling their 2025 Student Art Mural at the Sandpiper Community Center (797 Redwood Shores Parkway, in Redwood Shores). They’re inviting all of us to join them “for an unforgettable showcase of culture, imagination, history, and inspiration at our unveiling event!” Sounds hard to pass up, doesn’t it? I know I’m looking forward to see what the kids have created.