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Berkeley has released a draft environmental review for one of its tallest planned apartment towers, Hub Berkeley, a 26-story building set to rise at 2128 Oxford St. in downtown Berkeley.
The mixed-use plan includes 463 housing units with 40 affordable housing units, 15,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space, including a rooftop restaurant, 36 ground-floor parking spaces and a room with 264 bicycle parking spaces. The building will be all-electric, according to the environmental document.
Chicago-based Core Spaces, the student housing developer behind the project, plans to demolish two existing buildings at 2128 Oxford St. and 2132-2154 Center St. prior to construction. Numerous businesses that used to be on the corner block set for demolition, including Cinnaholic, Top Dog and Starbucks, closed down or shifted operations to other locations over the last year.
East Bay Spice Company will be open until May 18, and the restaurant plans to temporarily pop-up at another Shattuck Avenue restaurant while it moves “four doors down” to a new permanent location.
The 285-foot apartment tower is moving forward in an expedited process under a 2019 state law that shortens a building’s permitting journey if it complies with affordability requirements.
The 40 affordable housing units in the draft plan are broken down into 34 units for very low income residents and 6 units for extremely low income residents. In Alameda County, very low income is considered $77,850 for a family of four, and extremely low income is $46,700.
Core Spaces will also pay $11 million toward Berkeley’s Affordable Housing Trust Fund in lieu of hitting Berkeley’s 20% affordable housing requirement.
According to the draft report, demolition and construction of Hub Berkeley will take about three and a half years once work begins.
The analysis found that the project will not have significant impacts on pedestrian, bicycle or public transit facilities, or create traffic hazards in the downtown neighborhood. The project is less than 500 feet from Downtown Berkeley BART, and the report says the transit system can accommodate any increase in transportation needs from the anticipated influx of residents.
It will also align with the city’s downtown street and infrastructure improvement plans, according to the report, which could involve creating a “slow street” for improved pedestrian access on Center Street. The Downtown Plan anticipates 3,100 new housing units and a million square feet of commercial space by 2030.
The building is one of several large housing projects planned for downtown Berkeley over the next few years, along with a 28-story project planned for 2071 University Avenue (over a current McDonald’s) and a 25-story high-rise at 2190 Shattuck Ave., which became the first of the three to receive Zoning Board approval last year.
The draft environmental document will move through a public review period ending June 18 before the city submits a final environmental report. It will then go to the Zoning Board for final project approval.
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Supriya Yelimeli is a housing and homelessness reporter for Berkeleyside and joined the staff in May 2020 after contributing reporting since 2018 as a freelance writer. Yelimeli grew up in Fremont and… More by Supriya Yelimeli
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