Over the limit

With the project subsuming the parcel containing the Madison Avenue fourplex, the site abuts a single-story, single-family home on Madison Avenue. To keep that home from having to stand pretty much side-by-side with a sheer six-story-high wall of apartments, the project, as originally approved, was designed with the face adjacent to the neighboring home stepping back at a 45-degree angle as it rose. That would have allowed the building’s ground floor to occupy nearly the entirety of the project site while still giving the adjoining home a fair amount of breathing room.

Post-COVID, many large developers understandably opted to pause new projects, waiting to see how the many societal changes that resulted from our dealing with the pandemic settled out. Redwood City Discovery was seemingly included in that pause: After shepherding its project to a successful approval, Premier Properties never filed for building permits — something I would have expected to happen by early 2025. Now, Premier has apparently partnered with Mecah Ventures, and together they’ve submitted a new design containing 126 apartments (26 affordable) that finds itself back at the beginning of Redwood City’s approval process.

Simply referred to as “1330 El Camino Real,” this new project differs in key ways from the old. For instance, the new design has its internal parking garage (now with room for 124 vehicles) occupying most of the building’s first and second floors, and not underground. That change is partly responsible for the fact that the new design calls for an eight-story building stretching to just shy of 98 feet at its highest point (although the building’s roof would only be about 85 feet above ground level). As for that stair-step feature on the end facing the neighboring single-family home, it is gone in this new design. Instead, residents looking out the neighboring home’s side windows would find themselves looking at a 90-foot sheer face in which the first 24 feet would be a solid wall (behind which would be the building’s parking garage) while the rest would be dotted with apartment windows. Plus, a 4,000-square-foot courtyard on the building’s third floor would look out over that neighboring house and its yard.

This new building would certainly be the tallest on its block. However, it would stand next to Miramontes, the multistory affordable apartment building on the corner of El Camino Real and Jackson Avenue. That building is also quite tall, at 72 feet (its elevator shaft stretches to 82.5 feet); it, too, exceeds the city’s height limit on that side of El Camino. Then, directly across El Camino Real, the Huxley Apartments building stretches the length of its block and ranges in height from 85-92 feet (with stairs and mechanical penthouses going to 100 feet). No waiver was needed for that project, since where it is located the city allows buildings up to eight stories or 92 feet. But by being comparable in height to the 1330 El Camino Real project, from the street the proposed new project should fit right in.

Given continued demand for housing in cities up and down the Peninsula, this newly proposed project’s 126 apartments are badly needed. Given that, although the design may be altered somewhat during the approval process, I can imagine some version of this project getting approved. And if it is, given that this project has just been proposed after the previous one languished, 1330 El Camino Real should have a good chance of actually getting built.