It has been nearly three years since the plans for an 18-story building with over 300 apartments, a new multi-screen cinema, and multiple restaurant and retail spaces to rise at 2211 Harold Way in Downtown Berkeley were first proposed.
And in a special meeting this Wednesday, September 30, the development could be approved by Berkeley’s Zoning Adjustments Board, as is recommended by Berkeley’s Planning Department.
The Environmental Impact Report for the development was certified in June and the refined designs for the project, which shifted the building mass to address “urban design concerns about views” and added more glass for contrast, were presented last month.
If approved, the Residences at Berkeley Plaza project will rise up to 180-feet behind the historic Shattuck Hotel, with 302 apartments, a ten-screen theater, 177 underground parking spaces and nearly 11,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space, including a 340-square-foot outdoor dining area at the corner of Harold and Kittredge.
The Hink’s Building at the corner of Harold and Allston, along with a couple of non-historic additions to the Shattuck Hotel, would be razed to make way for the development which would take a couple of years to complete.
Looks like a decent project. Berkeley needs more density downtown.
Does downtown Berkeley really need a cinema complex?
Yes. There are 10’s of thousands of students within walking distance of downtown. There are 100,000 residents of Berkeley. It can easily support many screens.
Anyone want to handicap whether these actually open as movie theaters (Berkeley, unfortunately, has a history of this type of unfulfilled developer promises)? My second best guess would be a giant laser tag center.
I believe the current Shattuck Cinema will be demolished. These screens would just be a replacement.
Yes, the current Cinema is situated in what was the main floor of Hinks: squarely in the foreground of the perspective views (where “BISTRO” appears).
No. The current HISTORIC Shattuck Cinema will be DESTROYED so this SKYSCRAPER can vault into the Berkeley skies and cause the end of life as we know it. You need to be more dramatic otherwise this might actually get built.
Berkeley’s downtown is woefully underbuilt.
Excellent. Though I almost never ventured into Downtown Berkeley as an undergrad, I am glad that there is movement and investment in the area some decades later and my cousin’s son can enjoy better surroundings and amenities than I did as a freshman.
I always thought it was weird how willingly students went to the commercial areas north and south of campus but avoided going down hill into town.
The North and South side areas are nicer for students to meet each other for lunch, coffee, and study groups. Most teaching assistants hold their office hours at the South side cafes especially if they are also Boalt Hall students.
I would venture to say the North side cafes see more engineering students since they are closer to the engineering and computer science buildings.
They are also closer to classrooms / dorms. Getting to Shattuck means walking about 3-4 blocks west for the entire campus aside from the Northwest corner. North/South side are just easier to get to.
North and south were certainly more convenient for the first few blocks, but back in the day, students trickled even further south than that, further than the 3 or 4 blocks that would have taken them to Shattuck. The phenomenon always had a student vs. townie vibe to me. I may have been imaging things 🙂
No, that’s true. Back in the day (10+ years ago) you could step off campus and North / South might be more lively at night, but I always felt like Shattuck was mostly empty. There is the 1-2 blocks south of Center Street that might have something open, but I didn’t want to hang around Shattuck at night.
Nope. There really was nothing for students on Shattuck back then except for unsavory types such as homeless, some hippie dippy Berkeley residents as opposed to students near the BART station. If you needed to go to SF, you high-tailed it to and from the BART station and don’t look back.
My back in the day is clearly further back than yours. I wouldn’t say there were zero homeless, but it wasn’t the gauntlet I assume it is today. I always thought it was weird the movie theater didn’t attract more students.
Hink’s Lives! (well, the building, at least…for now)