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Redwood City, readying to refresh its 2011 vision for a better downtown, hosted public presentations in recent weeks to showcase inspiration for this makeover.
“Downtowns especially are the heartbeat of many communities,” said Poonam Nakar of WRT Design, the moderator of the first event. “Making sure that these different parts are working together becomes even more important.”
The city defined the Greater Downtown as the area of interest, characterized as the perimeter of Whipple Avenue to US-101 to Woodside to El Camino Real, and involving Stambaugh-Heller and Centennial neighborhoods, as well as Veterans Boulevard and Broadway.
The event in late August featured five panelists at the Redwood City Women’s Club who discussed how the synergy among buildings, transportation networks, parks and businesses could all contribute to a better downtown.
“We recognize that we cannot just look at one component in isolation,” Nakar explained, nudging at the importance of an “integrated systems approach.”
Such a perspective involves the consideration of land use, urban form and character, public realm, economic vibrancy and resiliency, mobility and equity as priorities in conversation.
The speakers included architects Narkar of WRT Design, Richard Roark of Olin Studio, Brian Milman of WRNS Studio and David Masenten of ELS Architecture & Urban Design, and transportation policy specialist Jessica Alba of OptiMobility Solutions.
Roark emphasized the value to every so often, “look at the places that you’re at” and ask questions like “what should it be and what makes it authentic?”
Seeing as San Mateo County is the most vulnerable county in California to Sea Level Rise, and Redwood City has the longest shoreline in the county, he offered two examples of similar cities to Redwood City that are also set on low-lying marshlands.
The City of Hoboken, New Jersey constructed a park at an abandoned industrial site to be used as both a flood sponge and recreational facility for all ages. Relatedly, a swampland in Puerto Rico that became a flood-prone city was reimagined by urban designers with a continuous paseo to enable water to flow through without harming residences.
He said both of these concepts could inform the future of Redwood City.
The hallmark considerations for architecture and urban design, Milman of WRNS Studio said, are care for the history, context and residents, character as in who you are and how you think about yourself within the context of the world and quality as in what it feels like to be in a place.
Masenten expanded on these ideas by offering a number of factors he’s identified as attractive to tenants: foot traffic, visibility, parking, access, outdoor dining and activation potential, street-life, tenant mix, predictable permitting and other city processes and events. Castro Street in Mountain View and Burlingame Avenue in Burlingame, he said, got it right.
Lastly, Alba dedicated her presentation to the importance of shifting away from car commuting. She mentioned that the U.S. saw 44,000 traffic fatalities in 2024 and car ownership costs around $10,000 a year for most. Moreover, she said that ride-hailing and door-to-door delivery adds to congestion, while cars that might be getting cleaner from a carbon perspective are also getting heavier, which impacts the quality of the roads.
In Redwood City, over 50% of trips are under 3 miles, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics. Moreover, over half of Americans said they would bike if they felt safe, according to a study published in Sage Journals.
She used these stats to make the case that city should prioritize non-driving commuting options, like bike riding and walking. Moreover, she celebrated robotaxis as a solution, which was rebuked by many members of the audience after the fact.
To shift the status quo, she suggested making streets more bikeable and safer, along with limiting free parking options, which leads to more driving. Such would require a mindset reset to be more compassionate on the road as a driver and to be OK with giving more time to commuting as a non-driver. Protected and well-lit infrastructure in the “right corridors” are some tactics she offered for implementing this change.
Residents welcomed the shift to bike transportation, but requested that bike lanes not weave so much through traffic.
Alba agreed, admitting that she used to ride Jefferson Avenue every day on her bike, but doesn’t “necessarily feel safe there.”
“In Menlo Park and in Palo Alto, almost the majority of school kids get to their schools by other means than driving,” she said. “We’re just one city away.”
The talk was part of a decades-old tradition of speaker events held by the City. This one comes in the context of a post-pandemic era with unique economic, social and environmental needs.
Residents can expect to hear from the city’s project team about a “draft Vision Framework,” which will also be shared with local “decision-makers,” according to John Francis of the city’s Planning Development Department. The hope is to garner feedback from the public and officials to help refine the Greater Downtown Area Plan’s policy and design “in the months ahead.”
Such events will include a community open house on Oct. 11 and a series of study sessions with the city’s council, boards, commissions and committees spanning into spring of 2026. Find the complete calendar at https://rwcgreaterdowntown.com/events/.
