GREEN LIGHT FOR BERKELEY DOWNTOWN ECO-PLAZA

At close to midnight Wednesday, March 23, Berkeley City Council voted (8-1) to endorse the Hood proposal for Center Street and directed city staff to work with nonprofit and community partners, Ecocity Builders and Citizens for a Strawberry Creek Plaza, to move the project forward and apply for upcoming funding opportunities. Following a decade of citizen-led advocacy and numerous public processes, the downtown Berkeley project can move forward beyond concept and into planning for implementation.

The project is located at a prime opportunity site along the main pedestrian thoroughfare from the Downtown Berkeley BART station and the UC Berkeley campus, and is likely to attract funding for its myriad social, environmental, economic and infrastructure benefits to residents and visitors.  "This is a key victory in this project's history. Deadlines are coming down the pipeline in the next month, for millions of dollars of potential funding for this project," says Kirstin Miller, executive director of Ecocity Builders. 

The project has gone through numerous rounds of public and planning processes, since it was first proposed to the city in 1997 and is consistent with official City of Berkeley planning and policy documents. The City Council has previously adopted policies in reference to the plaza in the 2001 Berkeley General Plan, 2004 Downtown Task Force recommendations, 2007 Downtown Area Plan Advisory Committee recommendations, and the 2009 Downtown Area Plan. 

Award-winning landscape architect, Walter Hood, in 2007 was commissioned to design the plaza, located on Center Street between Oxford Street and Shattuck Avenue in downtown Berkeley. Hood was responsible for designing the gardens at the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum in Golden Gate Park. 

The Hood design calls for closing off this block of Center Street except for emergency and delivery vehicle to create a pedestrian-oriented gathering space tied to the upcoming Berkeley Art Museum/hotel and conference center complex. Strawberry Creek will be partially "daylighted," or dug up from underground storm drains where it is currently buried in the downtown area, for residents and visitors to enjoy and learn about creek ecology and the regional watershed.  The Hood design elements and more project information can be viewed here.