Writing this, I’m hearing the gentle sounds of rain hitting my skylight. Rainy days cause challenges for exploring Redwood City on foot, but our need for water far outweighs my need to take walks. And it appears that our current series of storms will indeed have a measurable impact on our drought. Not enough to completely refill our reservoirs and aquifers, but every drop helps.
Our long-term outlook remains for drier conditions, though, presenting difficulties in supplying our homes, businesses and farms with life-giving water. In 2022, the city declared a Stage 2 Water Shortage Emergency, establishing limits for how much water we all should be using. More proactively, this year, the city’s recycled water supply lines — which already ran out to the Kaiser Hospital complex on Veterans Boulevard — were further extended to the Broadway Plaza project site (at Woodside Road and Broadway), and to the sites of the county’s Navigation Center and the 1548 Maple St. townhouse project.
Plus, progress was made toward bringing recycled water all the way to the ELCO Yards project (at El Camino Real and Cedar Street). Thus, expect these large under-construction projects to use considerably less drinkable water per capita than is typical.
On a related note, this year the city instituted “reach codes” that will reduce reliance on natural gas in new construction.
The main Broadway Plaza project site saw relatively little activity in 2022 because the developer first needs to complete the new CVS/pharmacy just across Woodside Road — a project that made good progress this year. ELCO Yards, on the other hand, had no similar constraints and made great progress: All six blocks making up the project site were cleared, and two of the project’s large underground parking garages were dug. As for the 1548 Maple St. project, although the townhouses themselves are not yet underway, all of the needed infrastructure now appears to be in place after a busy year of moving dirt, laying pipe and building streets. In 2022, Redwood City continued to make strides in housing production. In addition to the previously named projects, which consist of housing entirely or in part, the 12-unit townhouse complex at 120 El Camino Real and the 10-unit one at 211 Vera Ave. were completed. A seven-unit development at 31 Center St. got underway this year, and the site of an eight-unit complex at 955 Woodside Road was cleared and made ready for construction.
As for affordable housing, the Hallmark House apartments were completed in 2022, as was the Habitat for Humanity project at 612 Jefferson Ave. The county purchased Redwood City’s Comfort Inn, which Alta Housing remodeled and turned into the 51-room Casa Esperanza. Finally, the 39-unit affordable apartment building being constructed at 1304 El Camino Real as part of ELCO Yards made tremendous progress in 2022, as did the 125-unit apartment building at 353 Main St. — which is now leasing — and the county’s Navigation Center, which aims to open its doors this January.
The city saw progress on its share of office projects, including the large one at 1180 Main St., the smaller one at 1390 Woodside Road, and the county’s wonderful “mass timber” project at Marshall Street and Middlefield Road. The year 2022 also saw projects to convert the Maguire Correctional Facility into a new Sheriff’s Office, the Kmart building into an office (and factory?) for robotics company Dexterity, and the Nazareth Ice Oasis into life science lab space get underway.
Much progress was made on Redwood City’s new Veterans Memorial/Senior Center building in Red Morton Park. Plus, the Hopkins Avenue traffic calming project finally got underway; Blomquist Street was extended to the Maple Street shelter; the Middlefield Road streetscape project was wrapped up; and speed humps were added to portions of various city streets. The Racial Equity Mural along Jefferson Avenue was largely completed in 2022, and the downtown parks project not only received a multimillion-dollar grant, but also made progress toward a final design.
Businesswise, Redwood City lost a few, but seemingly gained more than it lost. Multiple new food establishments opened in 2022, along with a handful of new service businesses and even a couple of small retailers. The city approved four cannabis retail outlets, and enacted a temporary moratorium on firearms retailers as it considers what, if any, rules should be established before allowing them to operate within the city.
If anything, the year 2023 promises even more activity. Some of the development projects that were approved in 2022 — including the massive Harbor View project and the 480-unit apartment project proposed for the Century Theatres site on East Bayshore Road — may well get underway in 2023. Plus, the creation of the new Transit District will undoubtedly encourage further development in that part of the city. As they say, when it rains, it pours.
Greg Wilson is the creator of Walking Redwood City, a blog inspired by his walks throughout Redwood City and adjacent communities. He can be reached at greg@walkingRedwoodCity.com. Follow Greg on Twitter @walkingRWC.
(1) comment
Happy New Year, Greg
Thanks for a recap of progress made on Redwood City projects in 2022.
Longfellow Real Estate Partners submitted a proposal in 2022 to install a 3.3 million square foot office and lab campus less than a half mile from the Oracle complex and even closer to several residential neighborhoods. Longfellow wants to build massive new structures that do not conform to the City Council’s approved site plan for the Longfellow property. The project will negatively affect residents for 20 or more years.
This developer is fond of trotting out “community benefits” as a way to convince city councils and residents most affected by such projects that it’s OK to approve them. Longfellow is wrong. Most egregious is the developer’s mantra that the project will create affordable housing. It won’t. Projects of this magnitude exacerbate housing shortages, but they’re good for the corporation’s bottom line.
P.S. I tried to submit these comments when the power went out. They may appear twice.
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