From parking to parks

Those of us fortunate enough to live within easy walking distance of a city park know just how special they are, and what a wonderful thing it is to be able to regularly enjoy these public outdoor spaces. But a great many Redwood City residents don’t have that luxury; the city simply doesn’t have enough parks to properly serve the entire community. Ideally, the city would build more, but nearly all of the available space has been developed and is in active use.

Given the thousands of housing units that’ve sprung up in downtown Redwood City over the last decade — an area with no parks at all — the need for one or more downtown public parks has skyrocketed. Fortunately, Redwood City owns a number of downtown properties, and although many of them contain needed city buildings, a few are nothing more than surface parking lots. Lots that, assuming the loss of parking can be dealt with, can easily be converted into parks.

For a great many years now, Redwood City has been considering the best way to add parks to downtown Redwood City. In 2018, or thereabouts, the city settled on an interesting solution, a set of three loosely linked parks stretching from the downtown public library out to where Redwood Creek ducks beneath Highway 101. One park would be adjacent to the library itself, another would occupy some portion of the Main Street Parking Lot (which sits midblock behind the Jefferson Street Post Office), and one would be a linear park along the banks of Redwood Creek between Veterans Boulevard and the freeway. Given the challenges and costs of developing three parks (not to mention the issues around drastically reducing the size of a popular downtown parking lot), the city has chosen to focus on one park at a time, starting with the one adjacent to the library. Then it will move on to the one along the banks of Redwood Creek, finally finishing with the park in the Main Street Parking Lot.

The first park, adjacent to the library, has been in design for years now. At long last, in May, the consultants who’ve been guiding the project presented a draft of their (and our, the design was created based on extensive outreach to the community) preferred plan for the park. Taking into account feedback from the city’s Parks Commission, they’ll next generate the park’s final design and cost estimates. Fingers crossed, by midnext year, work just might be underway on a fascinating, multipurpose park in downtown Redwood City.

As currently designed, this new park will occupy the small library parking lot at the corner of Middlefield Road and Main Street, the small green space (“Roselli Park”) on the southeast side of the library, and a fraction of the parking lot behind the library. Given the wide variety of people who would use it — area residents, library patrons, students, folks in town for events, and so on, the park has been designed to address a diverse set of audiences. It would include multiple play areas for kids, a picnic area shaded by redwood trees, an open lawn that would double as audience seating for the park’s small stage, an outdoor extension to the library’s Maker Space, a scattering of shaded seating areas (some with mist sprayers that would provide cooling on hot days), public restrooms (and a pet relief area), and a loop trail that would serve those wanting some exercise. To help alleviate concerns about security, some existing trees would be removed to improve visibility (and many more would be added in areas where clear lines of sight aren’t as important), and a couple of windows would be added to the side of the library facing the park. Finally, there would be lighting throughout to improve safety at night.

With most of the needed funds already in hand — thanks to a multimillion-dollar grant awarded by state Sen. Josh Becker, D-Menlo Park, plus in-lieu park fees supplied by developers of various downtown projects — and with the design seemingly close to final, this park has only a few final hurdles to leap before groundbreaking gets underway. Once it does, I dearly hope that the city maintains its momentum and starts work on the second park right away. We need all the parks we can get, and clearly Redwood City will never be able to build too many.

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.