This week, I headed north into San Carlos for a look at a couple of projects I’m particularly interested in, and then worked my way down towards the southern part of Redwood City. I also ran across one other project of note that doesn’t fit neatly into my north/south theme…but what are you going to do?

Well to the north, Honda San Carlos is finally building what looks to be its main showroom:

This dealership has gone through a lot of upheaval over the years. For the longest time, it was Honda Redwood City, located at the corner of El Camino Real and Hopkins Avenue. But in June of 2018, Honda Redwood City moved to a brand-new purpose-built dealership building at 777 Industrial Rd. in San Carlos, and renamed itself to Primo Honda. The former site of Redwood City Honda was then redeveloped by KB Housing, giving us “Link 33,” the 33-unit townhouse complex that stands there today. As for Primo Honda, even though it had moved into a custom dealership building that had been specifically built just for it, the dealership only lasted at that site for about three years. By December of 2021, Primo Honda had moved a long way down the street — to 268 Industrial Rd. — and had renamed itself to Honda San Carlos. This time, though, it didn’t move into a fancy new dealership building, but instead had to make do with some existing structures and, for its dealership offices, a portable trailer. And as you probably know, that beautiful new-ish dealership building at 777 Industrial Rd. was almost entirely demolished (leaving only the concrete shell of the building’s ground level) and redeveloped as 777 Industrial, a three-story lab-and-office life sciences building.

As for Honda San Carlos, from the get-go it seems to have had plans to build an actual showroom at its new location, but it has been operating pretty much without a formal showroom for the last three and a half years (the dealership did do a bit of work to enlarge the surface parking lot, making room for more vehicles). Finally, though, that new building is well underway, being constructed right behind the temporary trailer that contains the dealership’s sales offices. This should be a sign that Honda San Carlos is staying put this time, but then again, that’s what I thought when they moved to 777 Industrial Rd…

Moving south, into downtown San Carlos, I spent some time circling the parcel where the Cherry Street Commons affordable housing development is getting underway. At the moment, work is focused on bringing underground utilities to the site. Thus, all of the current activity is taking place on the sidewalk and in the street between Laurel and Walnut streets — demolition of the small medical office building and the small six-unit affordable apartment building that sat along Cherry Street having been completed some weeks ago.

With the two existing buildings now gone, the alley that used to jog around the medical building has been straightened out, and the remaining properties have been combined into a single parcel upon which the new five-story, 33-unit affordable apartment building will be constructed. That parcel is, for the moment, fenced off and sitting empty, waiting for actual construction to commence:

Construction of the new building is expected to take about 16 months; the city expects that the project will be complete by the end of 2026.

Continuing my march south (and a bit to the east), I did my weekly check-in on the two projects underway along E. Bayshore Road, just south of Whipple Avenue. The toxic soil cleanup project is looking really good:

As for the next-door Syufy Project, work continues, and although I took some photographs for my archives, they aren’t really worth sharing here. However, reader Debbie — who lives out on Bair Island Road, and thus has a keen interest in the project — shared an email she received from Ryan Kuchenig, the Redwood City planner who is the city’s point person for the project. Ryan checked with the developer, and was told that “the first residential building and VillaSport is expected to be completed by late Spring/early Summer 2027.” Ryan went on to note that the developer has not yet applied for the building permit needed for the second residential building. In any case, residents can clearly expect some delays at times along E. Bayshore Road in front of the project, although hopefully not for too long.

Next up, we come to the Broadway Plaza project, along Broadway between Woodside Road and Chestnut Street. Of the three residential buildings under construction, the fully affordable building at the corner of Chestnut and Bay streets looks to be pretty much done, with just a bit of work on the common areas and the front sidewalk still to be completed:

As for the largest of the three buildings — the one along Broadway that will also include ground-floor retail spaces and a childcare center — it is rapidly receiving the last of its exterior finishes:

The third residential building, which fronts onto Bay Road, is fully framed and, while I was there, was having its windows installed:

Following Broadway to the south, I finally came to the southernmost point of my journey, the Stanford Medical project underway along Broadway just past Douglas Avenue. This project remains hard to photograph due to the fact that nearly all of the current work involves foundations and utilities, which all are of course being done at ground level. And given that I really don’t have any good options to get up high and look out upon the project, I’m forced to take pictures from near ground level. This won’t be a problem once the project goes vertical — which I expect it’ll do quite soon (and this being a nine-story building, there’ll be plenty to see). For now, though, I have to content myself with pictures like this one, taken from Broadway:

Because this project also involves constructing another two-level parking garage up against the freeway, I also made my way to where Douglas Avenue dead-ends close to the freeway, and took a picture through the driveway at that end of the project:

Again, not a whole lot to look at there yet — plenty of work is going on to construct the base of the garage, but its hard to see — but unless I take some photos out of the passenger window of a car zooming by on the freeway (which I may try at some point) I’m not going to get many great pictures of that part of the project, at least until it is done and I can freely enter the site.

From here, we head back up Broadway to Woodside Road and turn west. After traveling about two and a half miles, you come to the intersection of Woodside Road and Rutherford Avenue, where a project I’d almost given up on seems to finally be getting underway:

I last wrote about this project in 2022, but even if you read about it back then, I don’t expect that you’ll remember. Here, on the corner, there are two very small houses. The one you can just make out in the above photograph, on the corner, is the smallest: it is just 700 square feet in total, and has just one bedroom and one-and-a-half bathrooms. That house, plus a small free-standing two-car garage, sits on a 3,600-square-foot lot that is only 27 feet wide (along Woodside Avenue; the Rutherford side of the property is about 130 feet in length).

Next door, amid the trees, is a somewhat bigger 870 square foot house. It sits on a much larger lot: 9,450 square feet in size. The lot sizes are what is most important, since the project approved for this site will consist of six three-story townhouses (one affordable) on the combined lots. That development is slated to look something like this, when viewed from Woodside Road:

The six townhouses will be arranged in two rows of three, with a central driveway (coming in from Rutherford Avenue) providing access to the garages and the unit front doors. As you can see, the three units along Woodside Road have double-doors facing that street; those doors open into what could be a home office. At least two of the townhouses appear as if they could function as “live/work” units, although I’m not sure if the properties are officially zoned for that. In any case, all six will be, for the most part, conventional townhouses, with most of the bedrooms on the top (third) floor and living, dining, and kitchen spaces on the second floor. Five of the six will have four bedrooms each (the affordable unit is one of these), while the remaining townhouse will have just two. In the four-bedroom units, the fourth bedroom, along with one full bathroom, will occupy most of the ground floor living space. Also on the ground floor, each unit will have a two-car garage. Finally, the units will be comfortably large: one of them will contain a whopping 3,242 square feet of living space, while another will clock in at 2,650 and three more will all be 2,214 square feet in size. The smallest — the two-bedroom unit — won’t be at all small, at a roomy 1,846 square feet.

Infill townhouse projects like this are becoming more common in our area, and for good reason. They make far better use of the available land (compare the six large townhouses, with a total of 22 bedrooms, to the two small single-family homes, with a total of just three bedrooms, that exist there today). Plus, multi-family housing tends to be cheaper than single-family housing, and thus makes home ownership possible for a larger range of buyers. Not that these won’t still be expensive, relative to most parts of the country, of course…

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Summer is here, and with it comes all of the many activities put on by the city and by other supporting groups. Music on the Square and Music in the Park are both well underway, and the first of four Pub in the Park events has happened (the remaining three are scheduled for July 12, August 2, and September 6, 2025). The Fourth of July will soon be upon us, and that means Redwood City’s annual parade and downtown festival. We normally also have a fireworks show, but this year there will be something a bit different: instead of fireworks, there will be a drone show. Out at the port (and beginning around 9:30 p.m.), as usual.

Finally, don’t forget tomorrow’s open house at Redwood City’s main fire station on Marshall Street. Bring the kids, enjoy the many activities, and chat with our firefighters. Saturday, June 21, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., at 755 Marshall St. Convenient parking is available in the garage directly across the street from the fire station.