The designs for an 18-story building with over 300 apartments proposed to rise at 2211 Harold Way in Downtown Berkeley have been refined anew, shifting the building mass to address “urban design concerns about views” and adding a bit more glass, and removing balconies, for contrast.
Fronting Harold Way, Allston Way and Kittredge Street, the Residences at Berkeley Plaza development would rise behind the existing Shattuck Hotel, additions to which would need to be razed along with the existing Hink’s Building/Postal Annex at Harold and Allston in order to clear the way for the building.
Under the newly revised design, the step back from the five story base along Allston has been increased by 23 feet (for a total of 38), with the building mass shifted towards Kittredge and a glass curtain wall system wrapping around the east side of the building’s northern and southern shoulders.
The unit count (302 apartments) remains the same, with an average unit size of 731 square feet (up from 729). And the residential open space atop the building has increased from 14,535 to 16,406 square feet.
At the base of the building, the ground floor retail and/or restaurant space has increased from 10,535 to 10,597 square feet and now includes a 341 square foot outdoor dining area at the corner of Harold and Kittredge.
As the proposed building and prominent corner had previously appeared:
The privately owned but publicly accessible open space at the corner of Kittredge and Harold has been decreased from 1,872 to 723 square feet and bicycle parking has decreased from 100 to 74 spots, while the proposed theater has increased from six to ten (smaller) screens with a total of 641 seats, and parking has increased from 171 to 177 spaces for cars.
The Environmental Impact Report for the 2211 Harold Way development was certified this past June. A special ‘Study Session’ of the newly revised design will be held this week. And the hearing at which the development could be approved has been scheduled for the 30th of September.
Sleek. This should make a great addition to DTB
So much complaining about this project going on… it’s going to take ages to get it through. You would think they are building an ISIS headquarters with the way some people are reacting.
Yes, the complaints have been absurd and are completely impervious to even reason.
Well, to be fair, it does blot out the sun for the entire city of Berkeley while altering the migration of birds all across the west coast. When you add in the damage it will do to people trying to freeze Downtown Berkeley in a bygone era, man, people might actually move in. Can you imagine… people living in an urban center? Manhattanization is coming!
Never a dull moment on this side of the Bay. Anyone want to handicap whether we end up with the intended movie theaters or a very large laser tag center?
reduced bike parking and increased car parking. Liberal Berkeley at work!
You can’t expect people to walk everywhere. Now if this building had ample access to mass transit, I would agree with you, but otherwise they should turn downtown Berkeley into a parking lot.
Surely you don’t mean mass transit like the BART station and 6 AC Transit lines within 1/4 mile?
Those things are HUNDREDS of feet away. You can’t expect people to make it that far on foot, this isn’t a third world country!