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It shouldn’t be surprising that The Berkeley City Council will discuss a new plan for the area on Tuesday from 5-7 p.m.
The empty storefronts that pock the downtown make any Berkeley resident grimace–Shattuck Avenue and University Avenue pale in comparison to the prosperous downtowns of Emeryville and San Francisco.
But that might not always be.
The plan has been two years in the making, so no doubt you’ve heard of it. But the council will finally be hearing it Tuesday, and then, after a review by the Planning Comission, will vote on the project in May.
The Clog is especially excited about the
several pedestrian improvements, such as closing Center Street between Shattuck Avenue and Oxford Street and possibly uncovering Strawberry Creek, widening the sidewalks, adding public art and lighting and creating a series of small parks.
A more elaborate entrance to the University of California is also part of the proposal.
But are such improvements possible? The downtown proposal has been coupled with the Public Commons for Eveyone Initiative … and everyone knows the Clog doesn’t have too much faith in that plan.
All we know is that we sure hope to hell that the downtown doesn’t turn out the way the Chron hopes it will.
In a few years, downtown Berkeley could look a bit more like downtown San Francisco … a bustling urban center thick with hotels, office high-rises, theaters and museums, but low on parking and sunlight.
Um, if the Public Commons Initiative and the new downtown proposal are going to make Berkeley into San Francisco, we might as well move to Oakland.
Image Source: Introvert
Berkeley hopes to restore its downtown to life [SF Gate]
Downtown Berkeley Association [Web site]
Comments:
Dec 21, 2007 at 9:35 am
Emeryville doesn’t have a downtown. It has lots of big box retail destinations, which give the city lots of local tax revenue… but what are you calling downtown? IKEA? Bay Street? Home Depot? The Public Market? The Amtrak Depot? There’s no urban center.
Dec 17, 2007 at 9:41 pm
Two years? More like 3 or 4 years. I last lived there in June 2004 and they had already been talking about the pedestrian improvements to Center Street and the faux daylighting of Strawberry Creek it for six months before with talk of the new BAM/PFA building.