Stanford continues Redwood City expansion

A Stanford in Redwood City Precise Plan was prepared and approved in 2013 along with a 30-year development agreement — outlining the future of the project and the terms for its approval — and Phase 1 of development was completed at the end of 2019.

For Phase 2, Stanford Health Care, an arm of the university, plans to build a new medical office building adjacent to the existing Stanford Medicine Outpatient Center. It includes up to 228,000 square feet of new medical and clinical space, integrated parking within the building. That structure will be developed on a lot known as Block E bounded by Douglas Avenue, Broadway and Highway 101.

A second Phase 2 application for Block C, bounded by Broadway, Hurlingame Avenue, Bay Road and Warrington Avenue, calls for two five-story 125,000-square-foot office buildings with amenities and a separate 4,000-square-foot “amenities building.” Both projects propose a combined 1,739 parking stalls.

“This faithfully fulfills the Precise Plan and we’ve been working on it — I can’t believe since 2008. Nevertheless, I think this does a good job at what the Precise Plan was set to do,” said commission Chair Rick Hunter.

Part of Tuesday’s requests also included an ask for a 15% reduction in parking for the first phase of the project given that an updated assessment shows fewer stalls would still meet demand. Phase 1 brought in 570,000 square feet of office, a 1,057-space parking garage, a fitness center, a child care facility and a cafeteria.

Community benefits related to that first phase include 2.4 acres of publicly accessible open space and improvements to Broadway including new traffic signals, bike lanes, the creation of a center turn lane and maintenance of a loading zone on Broadway, according to the city’s development website for the Stanford in Redwood City project.

“We are all, on the Stanford and Stanford Health Care side, extremely proud to be a member of this community after all this time, that we’re no longer an application, that we’re actually part of the community. And we’ve always appreciated the input that we’ve gotten from this body and the community in general as we’ve gone through the various phases of the project,” said John Donahoe, senior director of planning and entitlements for Stanford University who’s been working on the project since it was initially proposed in 2008.

Stanford owes the city more than $15 million in total under the development agreement. Those funds have and will continue to go toward various infrastructure improvements, neighborhood enhancements, educational programming and other city funds.

More than $5.3 million has been paid to the city since the agreement was adopted a decade ago. Other community enhancements, including the creation of a new level 2 bike lane and publicly accessible open space, have also already been completed under Phase 1 with additional amenities proposed to development under Phase 2.

Vice Chair Filip Crnogorac and his fellow commissioners lauded the project for keeping in spirit with the precise plan and approved the developer’s request with Commissioner Isabella Chu recused. Crnogorac also asserted he thinks about touring the site with future developers to show them “what ideally an urban fabric that’s pedestrian and bike-friendly should look like.”

“This is a wonderful project,” Crnogorac said. “From Phase 1 we’ve seen what Stanford can do and really bring to the community both in terms of built infrastructure and also in terms of relationships with the community and their record, I feel, speaks for itself.”

sierra@smdailyjournal.com

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