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LPC Grants Celia’s Reprieve, Says No to Brennan’s By RICHARD BRENNEMAN

Friday February 11, 2005

Berkeley’s newest landmark—technically a structure of merit—poses a potential hitch in plans to build a square block of condos at the University Avenue gateway to the city. 

Prominent Bay Area architect Irwin Johnson designed the building at 2040 Fourth St. in 1946 as the offices of the long-defunct Irwin (no relation) Paint Company. Later, the building was home to the Mount Diablo Council of the Boy Scouts of America and currently houses Celia’s, a Mexican restaurant. 

The Landmarks Preservation Commission decision to designate Celia’s, reached on a 5-4 vote Monday, throws into question the future of a quarter of the site Urban Housing Group (UHG) had picked for a four-story condominium project that would include retail and parking on the ground floor. 

UHG, a recently formed development arm of Marcus & Millichap Co., the nation’s largest real estate investment brokerage, co-founded by University of California Regent George M. Marcus, specializes in developing mixed use housing projects at transportation hubs. 

Landmarks commissioners split on applications to landmark two buildings now standing in the block between Addison Street and University between Fourth Street on the east and the Union Pacific railroad tracks on the west. They approved protection for Celia’s, but denied it for Brennan’s Irish Pub at 720 University Ave. The pub remains as the same business for which the boxy green structure was originally built in 1959 by Berkeley contractor-turned-tavern-keeper John Brennan. 

UHG Director of Devel opment Daniel M. Deibel, backed up by his own architectural historian and allies, argued against both designations, as did his attorney, Rena Rickles of Oakland, whose court stenographer took down a verbatim transcript of the hearing. 

Rickles and her ste nographer are getting to be regular features at the commission, and were there on behalf of Louis Rossetto during the battle over landmarking the Wurster Cottage in January. 

Landmarks commissioners refused to designate Brennan’s, whose owners opposed the landmarking and declared that such a move would mean the end of their business. Margaret Wade, founder John Brennan’s daughter, said the building would require expensive structural renovation and equipment replacement were it forced to remain in the old building. 

Commissioners Lesley Emmington and Patricia Dacey argued for the Brennan’s landmarking, but the seven other commissioners voted against designation. 

For the Celia’s designation, chair Jill Korte, and commissioners Robert Johnson and Carrie Ols on joined Dacey and Emmington in voting for the designation. 

Commissioners Aran Kaufer, Fran Packard, Steven Winkel and James Samuels voted against both designations. 

Landmarking proponents, most drawn from the immediate neighborhood, offered strong sup port for both designations, but it was Brennan’s—a neighborhood as well as a citywide institution—that drew the most emotional support. One fan of the hofbrau-style tavern with the central bar said three generations of his family had been eating at Brennan’s since it first opened. 

Only one speaker mentioned patronizing Celia’s, which has operated in the building in 1977 and is now preparing to move to Hayward, said property owner Stephen Block, who decried the designation of his property. 

The structure of merit designation bestowed on Celia’s is a step down from the full landmark designation, but imposes the same strictures on development. 

Commissioner OIson moved for the lesser designation—one that would be eliminated under the commission’s proposed revisions to the city’s Landmarks Preservation Ordinance now pending before the city Planning Commission. 

Block, who owns the entire block, said he had been blindsided by the designation proposals, since no one informed him when he bought two properties from the railroad four years ago that any properties on the block other than the previously landmarked railroad station had any potential landmark status. 

Preservationist Gale Garcia, who wrote the landmark applications for both structures, said that to her, Brennan’s will always be a landmark in the classical sense of the term, a prominent symbol of both Berkeley and the neighborhood. 

“Celia’s is a beautiful building,” she said, one she has loved since her childhood in the 1950s, when it was known as “the Boy Scout Building.” 

Garcia also wondered why a major developer would be willing to risk so much money “in a market already glutted with multi-unit housing, much of it going vacant.” 

Reached at his San Mateo office late Thursday, Deibel said he’s no t sure what his next step will be. 

“We haven’t finalized any decisions, though I expect we’ll do that sometime next week,” he said.›