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Stanford Health Care is seeking to add a new cancer center to its Redwood City campus, with city leaders set to discuss the first proposed planning changes on Monday.
“A new cancer center in Redwood City would enable Stanford Medicine to continue revolutionizing the field by bridging innovative research with high-touch, personalized patient care on an integrated campus,” Stanford stated in its project proposal. “This unified epicenter for cancer innovation would rapidly move discoveries from research labs to patients’ bedsides and would use what doctors learn to guide further research.”
The proposal would require amendments to the Redwood City General Plan and the Stanford in Redwood City Precise Plan, which govern development at Stanford’s campus in the area. The proposed changes include redesignating parts of the site from commercial office and light industrial to hospital, expanding the plan boundary, increasing allowable building heights and allowing additional parking, according to a city staff report.
The Redwood City Council approved the Stanford in Redwood City Precise Plan and a development agreement with Stanford in 2013 for a 48-acre area that has since transitioned from industrial uses to research and development, educational, administrative and medical office uses, the staff report states. The plan also allowed expanded campus development, a new street grid and related amenities.
“More than a decade later,” Stanford said in its project proposal, in reference to the 2013 plans, “the growing burden of cancer presents a compelling reason to evolve that shared vision in a geographic area already envisioned for Stanford uses.”
While the city previously approved Phase 1 and Phase 2 of the Stanford in Redwood City Precise Plan, Stanford is now seeking to modify previously entitled development on Blocks C and E, as well as future planned development on Block D, according to the staff report. The proposal includes replacing existing development with a primary hospital building and two new medical research and clinic buildings, increasing development devoted to hospital uses, and adding three new parking garages across the campus.
While San Mateo County has a lower cancer incidence rate than San Francisco and Santa Clara counties, and that rate fell by nearly 12% from 2000 to 2017, the county’s incidence rate remains higher than California’s overall, according to the county’s 2023 All Together Better report.
The City Council will discuss whether to initiate review of the proposal at 6 p.m. Monday at City Hall, 1017 Middlefield Road, or online via Zoom using Meeting ID 994 8182 5639. The staff report says Monday’s action would begin further study of the proposal and would not amount to project approval.
