UC Offices May Leave Their Old Battleground

For years, the University of California has been the demon Berkeley activists love to hate--both ideologically, for its involvement in nuclear weapons research and its South African investments, and pragmatically, for its impact on local traffic, parking and the housing market.

Now, as the UC Office of the President discusses moving its statewide administrative offices to Oakland, Berkeley politicians find themselves in the strange position of courting that devil. And while most city officials have rallied behind a campaign to keep UC in town, some officials and activists are more than ready to say goodby--and good riddance.

“Years ago, I remember writing (Oakland Mayor) Lionel Wilson that it would be a great thing for Oakland and Berkeley if UC’s statewide administration could move to Oakland,” said John Denton, a former council member with the radical Berkeley Citizens Action slate. “I still think that’s where it belongs.”

Ann Chandler, a Berkeley Citizens Action council member who supports efforts to keep UC’s offices here, described the radicals’ mixed feelings at suddenly wooing a longtime foe.

“There’s a very real concern about traffic, parking and the expansion of UC into buildings it then takes off the tax rolls” as a state institution, Chandler said. “But part of what makes Berkeley Berkeley is the fact that the university is here. There’s a certain prestige in having the office of the president here. It’s an interesting dilemma.”

UC President David Gardner today will present the Board of Regents’ buildings and grounds committee with four proposals for a new UC headquarters in Oakland. The proposed move would involve UC’s administrative offices but not UC’s prestigious Berkeley campus.

University officials said they expect no final decision from today’s meeting, and no funds for a new president’s office have yet been requested in the university’s budget. But the Oakland proposals represent the latest step in a two-year effort by the university to centralize its operations, and the closest it has come to leaving Berkeley in its 111-year history here.

UC officials said the chief motivation for any move would be a consolidation of its offices. “We lease about 100,000 square feet and own 135,000 feet in six different buildings” in downtown Berkeley, said Christopher Adams, director of budget operations analysis for the university president’s office. “It costs us $1.5 (million to) $1.6 million yearly in lease costs. We have people spread all around, and that’s very inconvenient.”

In addition, officials want to strengthen the identity of UC as a statewide institution separate from the Berkeley campus, Adams said.

But some Berkeley residents charged that Gardner is trying to run away from students who tend to demonstrate at his doorstep.

In 1985, UC officials looked into building an addition to University Hall--a plan criticized by local activists as too large and later rejected as too small. In May, 1986, the university called for proposals from developers throughout the Bay Area, and in July it asked four Oakland developers to submit more detailed bids.

The Oakland proposals “galvanized” Berkeley’s radical City Council out of its previous “lethargy,” said Jim Novosel, a Berkeley architect who was awarded a $10,000 city contract to develop an expansion plan that would keep the president’s office in town.

Then-Mayor Gus Newport and state Assemblyman Tom Bates (D-Oakland) quickly met with local businessmen and planners to develop a campaign to keep the UC headquarters from moving. The city’s new Office of Economic Development carried out a study showing that loss of the president’s office would mean the loss of 1,000 jobs and more than $21.9 million in local purchasing power. Within days, the City Council had hired Novosel’s firm, The Bay Architects, to show UC that it could feasibly stay and expand.

In December, Novosel presented his plan for keeping the UC headquarters in Berkeley. Relying on a seven-story or 10-story addition to University Hall, the plan would meet UC’s space needs plus provide plazas and landscaping to integrate the site with downtown. The plan would also provide earthquake bracing for University Hall, while costing UC far less than any of the Oakland proposals, Novosel said.

The City Council found itself split on whether to encourage the 10-story addition or the seven-story plan. After a confusing series of votes, the council finally decided to support either expansion model while expressing preference for the smaller one--a compromise that made no one particularly happy.

Both Berkeley and UC officials agree that the strongest card in the city’s hand may ultimately be cost. Expansion in Berkeley--or simply making do as things are--will be cheaper for the university than any move, perhaps cheap enough to overcome the allure of business-hungry Oakland or of prestigious San Francisco, which recently submitted a proposal of its own.