This week, I’m covering two under-construction affordable projects along El Camino Real in Belmont. Before I get to those, though, Two Redwood City updates. First, my wife and I had lunch at The Wild Rover today. The Wild Rover, in case you don’t know (or don’t recall), is Redwood City’s newest Irish pub (joining the popular Alhambra Irish House, at 831 Main Street). It has taken over the spot on Broadway that formerly was home to City Pub, and fans of that earlier establishment will find it extremely familiar:

Except for the signage, very little has changed as far as the decor and overall physical appearance goes. The real changes come when you pick up the menu. For the last couple of years of its life — due at least in some part, I believe, to impacts from the COVID shutdowns — City Pub served a greatly reduced menu when compared with prior years. That was something that The Wild Rover owner Leona Browne noticed right away, and determined to correct. The menu she came up with is a mix of typical American pub fare, plus some items you’ll find in a real Irish pub (plus a mix). Today, at least, the menu has a healthy list of “shareables” (pretzels, sweet potato waffle fries, chicken wings, house-made battered mushrooms, deviled eggs…) plus sandwiches (yes, including a Pub Burger, which comes with fries or salad), tacos and quesadillas (including a corned beef & cabbage quesadilla!), some great-sounding salads, and a couple of large plates: fish & chips, shepherd’s pie, Guinness beef stew, and a grilled, marinated chicken breast. There are even a couple of items “for the wee ones.”

Do note that the menu is still somewhat in flux, with the new owner experimenting with what does and does not work. The menu we were handed shared many items with the one you can find online, but the two menus were by no means identical. Thus, don’t expect to be able to order all of the items from the online menu, at least for now. But I expect things will settle down in a couple of weeks, the menu will stabilize, and the printed and online menus will be synchronized.

When it comes to beers, The Wild Rover continues to serve a number of old favorites, plus rotating taps and various bottled selections. Thus, it should have something for almost everyone. I presume that it will also serve wine as well, although I confess I didn’t spend time perusing their non-beer options. I was just happy to be able to get a pint of Guinness on tap.

The Wild Rover has been open since Monday, June 2, in soft-opening mode. Today (Friday) being such a lovely day, my wife and I sat outside at one of the tables (and on the chairs and under an umbrella) that had belonged to City Pub just a few short weeks ago. Thus, we felt right at home, and were happy to be back. My wife just had to try the Pub Burger and fries, whereas I opted for something new and had the fish tacos (featuring beer-battered cod):

Both entrees were terrific. However, it’s early days, so I’ll withhold my final judgement for at least a second visit. I will note that The Wild Rover is currently serving shoestring fries (as opposed to City Pub’s cottage fries), which, based on a brief chat we had with the owner, are likely to change.

So far, so good! The Wild Rover is located at 2620 Broadway, in Redwood City. It is open everyday from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. (the printed menus show closing time as 10 p.m., while the website shows 11 p.m., so it may or may not remain open past 10). Oh, and since the menu is still in flux, pay it a visit and let the staff know what you think. Perhaps your feedback will be reflected in the final menu!

My second Redwood City item this week is a follow-on to last week’s post. The bulk of that post concerned the housing-and-athletic club project now underway at 557 E. Bayshore Rd., but after that I went on to speculate about some activity going on next door, at 505 E. Bayshore Rd. There, behind the Alan Steel buildings, I had noticed some serious digging going on, digging that I guessed was either connected to the approved (but not yet started) townhouse project planned for the site, or to Alan Steel itself. I went back again this week, and discovered that the digging is being done to remove “approximately 1,500 cubic yards of soil and sediment containing high levels of PCB and other contaminants from the banks and bed of the drainage channel…replace with clean soil; replant southern bank of channel; dispose of excavated sediment and soils at appropriate landfill.” Whether or not this has anything to do with the townhouse project, I still don’t know, but either way I’m really glad to see this getting done. The wildlife that inhabits that part of the Bair Island neighborhood, plus those of us who walk right by the contaminated site using the paved trail that runs between the Alan Steel property and the lagoon that marks the southwestern edge of Inner Bair Island, will certainly benefit.

Now, to Belmont. A couple of weeks ago I was driving up that way along El Camino Real, and noticed two projects underway on the west side of the street, just about a mile apart. The southernmost of the two is underway at 900 El Camino Real, which is just a block or so north of Ralston Avenue. This project — which ultimately will contain 37 fully affordable for-rent apartments — is unusual in that the project is split into two pieces separated by a public street. One building, containing 24 of the units, will be located at 900 El Camino Real, while a second building containing the remaining 13 units will be located just across Hill Street, at 898 El Camino Real. When constructed, they should look something like this (the smaller, northernmost building is on the right, whereas the larger is on the left; Hill Street runs through the gap between them):

The larger building will sit immediately adjacent to Belmont Hardware, on a lot that at one time was home to a small gas station. When I was there, the lot had been cleared, and there was a lot of digging going on, possibly to remove the underground gasoline storage tanks and to clean up what I presume was contaminated soil:

Across Hill Street, the smaller building will sit on what used to be three small parcels that contained a rather nondescript “one- or two-story residential/commercial building.” Immediately next to the project site is a single-story commercial building that today contains three retail/office spaces with various tenants. On this site, too, the lot had been cleared, right up to the next-door commercial building:

Despite the complex being divided by a public street, the two five-story buildings will operate as a single development: there will be only one manager’s unit for the whole complex, located in the smaller of the two buildings (the manager’s apartment will be in this smaller building, too). The ground floor of the larger building will include two offices plus a “community room.” Both buildings will have lobbies, mailboxes for the building’s residents, shared laundry facilities, bike lockers, and internal parking.

Unit sizes will be either one bedroom (18 of the units), two bedrooms (9 of the units) or three bedrooms (10 of the units); those units will range in size from about 600 square feet to just over 1,000 square feet. All will have small private decks. In addition, there will be a small bit of shared outdoor living space (957 square feet in the larger building, 422 square feet in the smaller building) located on the buildings’ second floors, plus an additional 200 square feet of shared outdoor space on the third floor of only the larger building. These outdoor common living areas will all be located on the rears of the two buildings, away from El Camino Real.

Parking is provided in the smaller building by a “tuck-under” garage, meaning that the spaces are open to and directly accessed from a rear driveway. In the larger building, the garage appears to be fully enclosed (although possibly without a garage door to protect the opening), and accessed from Hill Street. Regardless of the actual construction, the garages are small: the larger building, with its 24 apartments, will only have eight spaces — and one of those will be a shared EV space that presumably is to only be used when a vehicle is charging. Similarly, the “tuck-under” garage for the smaller building’s 13 apartments will only have four spaces, with one of those being reserved for the complex’s manager. So in total, 37 apartments, but only 12 parking spaces — one of which is to be shared among the residents for EV charging. Note, however, that this project is located close to the intersection of El Camino Real and Ralston Avenue, putting it just across El Camino Real from the Belmont Caltrain station and putting it within an easy walk of the Safeway shopping center, various other restaurants and shops along El Camino Real and along Ralston Avenue, Belmont’s City Hall, and Twin Pines park. So one could envision living here easily without a car. Plus, numerous buses go up and down El Camino Real and Ralston Avenue, providing (with Caltrain) a plethora of transit options.

Continuing up El Camino, the next project site is located at where Belmont Avenue meets El Camino Real. It sits adjacent to the Belmont Plaza shopping center: that center’s Mountain Mike’s Pizza backs up to where the new development will be constructed. The parcel (there were two that have been combined) is narrow and long, with the narrow end fronting El Camino Real. The site climbs up the hill to just below where The Van’s restaurant used to be; until demolition got underway the upper parcel was home to the 19-room Bel-Mateo Motel (the lower parcel has long been empty). Today, the site has been cleared and many of the concrete support structures have been poured:

Here, too, the developer is constructing a fully affordable (Low income and below) housing project. This one, though, will be quite a bit larger as befits its much larger (nearly 1.5 acre) site: 125 for-rent apartments. Because the building will extend up the hill, although at any point the building will only be six stories tall, from its lowest point (in front) to its highest point (in the rear) the building overall will stretch to eight stories.

When completed, the building should look something like this:

Like the 900 El Camino project, the apartments in this building will range in size from one to three bedrooms (52 one-bedroom/540 square-foot units, 40 two-bedroom/815 square-foot units, and 33 units with three bedrooms, ranging from 935 to 970 square feet). Unlike that smaller project, though, there will be more parking spaces in this building’s three-level internal parking garage than there are apartments: 152 parking spaces (16 EV, 9 handicapped accessible) for the 125 apartments. Amenities include a large outdoor recreation space with a children’s play structure, a fitness center, a resident club room, a homework/computer room, and a resident services office.

800 Belmont Avenue should be quite a place, and a nice addition to Belmont’s stock of affordable housing. As should be the project underway at 900 El Camino Real, in fact. Together they will supply 162 units of affordable housing at various affordability levels, providing good housing at reasonable (for our area, anyway) prices for those who are either retired or who are low-paid, yet badly needed workers in Belmont and in neighboring communities.