The Berkeley Zoning Adjustment Board has given the final stamp of approval for a 27-story residential tower at 2128 Oxford Street in Downtown Berkeley. The project aims to add 456 larger apartments tailored for students on the western edge of the UC Berkeley campus. Chicago-based Core Spaces is responsible for the application, with planning and CEQA consultation from the Rhoades Planning Group.
With a potential rooftop height of 285 feet, Core Spaces’ proposal is now the tallest building yet to get city approval. However, this milestone may be short-lived. The proposal for NX Ventures at 1998 Shattuck Avenue is poised to reach 317 feet tall. Prior to this, the tallest approved building in Berkeley’s pipeline was the 268-foot slab tower proposed by Landmark Properties at 2190 Shattuck Avenue. The Zoning Board certified the application last April, though construction has not yet started.
Writing to YIMBY, planning consultant Mark Rhoades of Rhoades Planning Group shared the following passage describing the board meeting:
No one spoke in actual opposition to the project either in person or on Zoom. This is a notable outcome and reflects the significant state law protections for new housing that we have helped to put in place these last several years. This project demonstrates leadership in environmental sustainability, architectural design, and social equity with 40 BMR units and $11,000,000 Affordable Housing Trust Fund payment.
The Hub at 2128 Oxford Street seen from Shattuck Avenue, rendering by DLR Group
The Hub at 2128 Oxford Street retail activity, rendering by DLR Group
The structure aims to yield roughly 713,700 square feet, with 537,260 square feet for the 456 homes, 14,400 square feet for retail, and 7,400 square feet for the first-floor garage. Parking will be included for 36 cars with stackers and 304 bicycles in a dedicated room. Unit types will vary, with 72 studios, 97 two-bedrooms, 265 three-bedrooms, and 22 four-bedrooms. Of the 456 apartments, there will be 40 units of affordable housing, with six units for extremely low-income households and 34 units for very low-income households.
DLR Group is the project architect. Plans drafted by the firm show a slab tower articulated with vertical carve-outs and material variation. The most notable corner feature is a rounded edge over the intersection of Oxford Street and Center Street. The project team writes that the “prominent corner tower element accentuates the verticality of the building while incorporating cementitious materials that reflect that of Spanish colonial tiles found throughout the campus and within the surrounding downtown context.” The palette of white, terracotta red, and dark grey are evocative of the city’s color scheme.
The Hub at 2128 Oxford Street podium view overlooking Center Street, rendering by DLR Group
The Hub at 2128 Oxford Street podium detail, rendering by DLR Group
2128 Oxford Street lot approximately outlined by SF YIMBY, aerial view via Google Street View
The project spans around 0.82 acres at the corner of Center Street and Oxford Street on a block bound by Shattuck Avenue and Allston Way. The Downtown Berkeley BART Station is located on the other side of Shattuck Avenue, less than a block away. For students, Oxford Street is significant as the western border of the UC Berkeley campus.
The estimated timeline for construction has yet to be shared.
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This is how you don’t die as a modern city.
To the hater environmental hippie types opposed, the human population will continue to grow. Things will level out soon for most developed countries, but here, demand will still grow. (Especially as things get hotter)
You’re smart enough to know these facts. You’re smart enough to know building in cities is far better than continuing to sprawl on virgin land that later only gets connected via high way access. Environmentally, if that’s your main basis on these kinds of projects, then let the cities build and leave the rolling hills for minor agriculture uses or even land restoration.
More density around the Downtown Berkeley BART station, this is a win! Let’s get building now, would love to see more of this around Fremont and the other BART stations.
Love it. Keep them coming.
Its all good, but it would be good if berkeley would also encourage/permit condos as well. A healthy urban city needs a good balance of the more transient student population as well as people who are here long term in order to have balanced politics.
‘Balanced politics’ is not happening in the Bay Area.
But this sort of setting lets people who graduate from Berkeley at get jobs at tech companies with WFH policies to still live in Berkeley during their 20s and even 30s. As these people now make money, this is good for the businesses that depend on students too.
This one looks great, except for the white part. Wish it were all the reddish brown color.
Perhaps, but color is #8 on my priority list.
Let’s go! More!
Berkeley is doing awesome work. It sets a good example for the entire Bay Area. Imagine if the Peninsula were doing as much.
As the tech industry becomes more and more WFH, a lot of tech employee types will move from dangerous SF to Berkeley.
Lol, Berkeley is great but not sure what reality you’re living in. WFH is declining dramatically in tech, not increasing. And SF is on pace to have the fewest homicides in a year since 1960.
I love Berkeley but let’s be fair to SF. It’s one of the safest big cities in America for violent crime.
We have a hard enough time housing students; people are free to remain/move here but I don’t think WFH tech workers are a high priority.
I don’t think advocates for San Francisco are convincing at all when they parrot stats about San Francisco’s declining rate of violent crime. When people from outside complain about San Francisco being dangerous, they are talking about the whole spectrum of crime, including having one’s car broken into (bipping), muggings, car jackings, assaults from drug addicts, etc.
It can be true that homicides are currently declining and also true at the same time that San Francisco is relatively dangerous.
This is fantastic that the shop façades will be retained! They add so much to the pedestrian experience on Bancroft Way.
Weird! The comment I posted was for a different project! This one obliterates all existing shopfronts.
Great to see dense, large-scale development like this in my city – it’s a prime location on the edge of downtown, right next to the college, with tons of transit etc. I do hope they manage to maintain the dense collection of eateries along the center street side. It’s one of the best streets in all of the Bay Area as far as being a rich, dynamic, transit-oriented thoroughfare.