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As the Berkeley Planning Commission’s UC Hotel Task Force heads into its next-to-last session this afternoon (Tuesday, April 13), the 25 panelists are examining a sizable stack of suggestions. 

From the dozens of offerings submitted by task force members, individuals and community organizations, the panel will select the final recommendations to present to the City Council in early June. 

The proposed 12-story hotel, convention center and museum complex would occupy most of the two-block block area bounded by Shattuck Avenue and Oxford Street between University Avenue and Center Street. 

Today’s session, scheduled for 1-3:30 p.m. in the Sitka Spruce Conference Room at the city’s 2120 Milvia St. Permit Service Center, will focus on design, green building, preservation, transportation, possible daylighting of Strawberry Creek, labor and employment issues, economic impacts, taxes, and finance. 

Also scheduled is the appointment of a committee to draft the final report. 

Of the written suggestions submitted so far, design issues clearly rank near the top. 

• As the newest and tallest structure in the city center east of Shattuck Avenue, the hotel would dominate the urban skyline—and that worries panelist Peter Selz, a retired UC Berkeley professor and founder of the university’s art museum. 

In a memo to the task force on the project’s architecture, Selz wrote, “When I inquired about the [architecture of the building, an essential matter]. . .Kevin Hufferd the campus project director, was vague and evasive in his reply. The same noncommittal answer came from the representative of Carpenter & Company, the firm which has been chosen as the building’s developer.” 

Selz blasted Carpenter and Company’s St. Regis Hotel, nearing completion in San Francisco near the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, which he said “has no architectural distinction.” 

Selz called for creation of an architect search committee consisting of one representative each from the university, city government and the public to hold a national or international search for a suitably distinguished architect. 

• Retired planner John English issued a call to create mid-block passageways providing pedestrian access between Center and Addison and between Addison and the intersection of University Avenue and Walnut Street. 

• English and fellow task force members Burton Edwards and Austene Hall jointly offered 19 proposals, including limiting floors six and above of the hotel to a maximum width of 80 feet, limiting the height of the building adjacent to Shattuck to four stories or less, and designing the streetfront exposures to harmonize with the existing structures. 

Many recommendations have poured in concerning the fate of Center Street, the principal access from the university to downtown. 

Most proposals call for either eliminating or severely restricting vehicular traffic on the street, creating a pedestrian plaza, and “daylight” Strawberry Creek, which flows above ground on campus and through underground culvert pipes through most of the city below. 

• The Sierra Club calls for an outright traffic ban on Center, while allowing access to the convention center to AC Transit buses and UC shuttles and bicycle access to the plaza. 

• A coalition of 27 individuals and activist groups urged daylighting the creek and project designed incorporating sustainable and green design principals, including solar energy. 

The coalition also urged that no free parking be provided for the project’s employees, who would be encouraged to use public transportation, and recommended a study to determine if an underground tunnel could be built linking the project with the BART station just across Shattuck. 

• Nathan Landau, senior transportation planner for AC Transit, urged the city to consider opening an access tunnel to BART on the east side of Shattuck and the creation of an underground station for AC Transit buses to allow easy transfer between buses and BART trains. 

• The city Transportation Commissioners weighed in with proposals of their own, including a call for hotel guests to pay market rates for parking at the complex—with a minimum charge of $10—and a limitation on parking at the hotel to no more than 25 spaces per 100 rooms. 

The commission also wants a single level of underground parking with an entrance on Addison Street and what they called “very expensive” all-day parking fees for non-hotel guests. 

Though commissioners said Center Street “could” be closed to cars and delivery vehicles, they recommended it be off-limits to buses—with enhanced bus stops on Shattuck to be partially funded by the developer, who should also contribute part of the parking fees or the hotel room rate to a downtown transportation fund. 

• Marcy Greenhut, president of the Berkeley Ecological and Safe Transportation Coalition (BEST), urged creation of permanent vendor spaces in the pedestrian areas of Center Street for the sale of art, crafts and locally produced food. BEST also called for a permanent, canopy-covered outdoor stage to provide a venue for local performers. 

• Task force members Zelda Bronstein, a member of the Planning Commission, and Bonnie Hughes, who serves on the Civic Arts Commission, called for a ban on all car and bus traffic on Center Street. They want the plaza designed as a work of civic art by architects and other designers of the highest caliber to provide discrete pockets of activity, including dining, shopping and people-watching. 

• To alleviate pressures on “the already over-stressed storm drain system and Sewer collection system,” the city Public Works Commission called for the project to be designed in conformity with strict green building standards. That suggestion was reinforced by task force chair Rob Wrenn’s plea that “the developer set a goal of building the ‘greenest’ hotel in the United States.” 

• Wrenn also urged that the developer and university allow access to meeting rooms at a lower community rate, and that they work with the city to incorporate public art into the project’s design. 

• The city Labor Commission called for the university and the developer to negotiate labor and neutrality agreements “to ensure labor peace throughout the construction.” Commissioners also urged the university and developer to comply with the city’s prevailing wage, equal rights benefits, living wage and First Source hiring ordinances, to provide adequate housing and childcare for workers, and to contribute to the city job training program.ˇ