Redwood City's Broadway Plaza nears final OK

Someone making $30,800 a year qualifies as “extremely low” income while a “very low” income person makes $51,350 a year and “low” income is $82,200 a year.

Developer Sobrato is also proposing 460,000 square feet of office space, 26,000 square feet of retail, a 10,000-square-foot child care facility with an outdoor play area, plus shared underground parking. There will also be 1.6 acres of publicly accessible open space with a dog park, water feature and other amenities at the center of the project site between the residential and office buildings. The environmental impact report estimates 1,720 workers and that the child care facility could support 100 to 125 children.

A CVS/pharmacy at the corner of Chestnut Street and Bay Road will relocate to the corner of Woodside and Bay roads to make way for the affordable housing building, which, along with the other residential buildings, will be constructed before the offices.

Sobrato has also agreed to donate 13,500 square feet of land for the Woodside/101 interchange project, which aims to reconfigure the roads and create new turn lanes and bike paths. That project is in the design phase and slated to begin in late 2020 or early 2021 if funding is secured.

The development proposal was initially submitted in 2015 and has evolved significantly since then due to community feedback. Residents requested the child care facility and increased open space, for example, and Sobrato incorporated those requests into the latest plans — one of many reasons commissioners celebrated the project.

“The process sounds like it has resulted in a fairly exemplary project, which I think is important for setting high standards for other projects and expectations to either meet or exceed,” said Commissioner Bill Shoe.

While the subject hardly came up during the meeting, traffic impacts associated with the project have been of concern among councilmembers and residents in the past. The development will generate 3,777 daily car trips and traffic impacts cannot be avoided at four intersections as well as segments of Highway 101, according to the EIR.

But commissioners felt the benefits of the project overshadow those downsides.

“I’m generally in support of this project. I think that it is from a cost benefit perspective, which is how I’m seeing the real nature of this project, one that the benefits clearly outweigh the costs,” said Commissioner Michael Smith. “The housing, specifically the apportionment of deeply affordable housing, is extremely compelling and shouldn’t be lost on anyone on the dais.”

The benefit of the development’s affordable housing was not lost on Smith’s colleagues, including Commissioner Rick Hunter, who also celebrated the “deeply needed” child care component as well as the shared parking arrangement, which allowed for the reduction of 270 parking spaces.

“This is as good a project as I could’ve asked for,” Hunter said.

Despite the commission’s effusive praise for the development, they did suggest a handful of tweaks.

Commissioner Nancy Radcliffe, who used to own a retail business downtown, said the development’s retail frontage lacks variety.

“On your retail level, there doesn’t seem to be a lot of differentiation between the spaces. It’s rather all monolithic in look and that’s really not the best for retail to be successful,” she said. “I’d really like to see you possibly mix it up a little bit, maybe some different colors or planters or just something so that you have the interest of the walking public. If a retail frontage doesn’t change within an average of 25 feet, you lose the interest of your pedestrians so it’s really important to have that change.”

Members of the public who spoke at the meeting also celebrated the project, including resident Kris Johnson, though he said the loss of a grocery store currently located in the strip mall is a “big deal” for the neighborhood. He also pushed back against the idea that “Broadway Plaza” is a transit-oriented development, as was suggested by others during the meeting.

“This project area is poorly served by SamTrans and is a mile from Caltrain so it’s a bit of a stretch to refer to this as transit oriented development,” he said.

Commissioners also shared several aesthetic gripes with the project and the applicant appeared amenable to making additional changes before the City Council reviews the project at a meeting May 20.

zachary@smdailyjournal.com

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