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Forget the gaping, empty stare and the gross green garb. New owner John Gordon said that when he is finished, the bedraggled old Victorian on College and Ashby avenues is going to make a dramatic comeback. 

The distinctive structure, clad in mal de mer green stucco, has been sitting vacant for years, right in the vital heart of one of Berkeley’s most vibrant commercial neighborhoods. 

The Victorian relic is just part of the bloc of property Gordon’s firm purchased from the heirs of its previous owner, who neighbors said had resisted any attempts to improve the property. Gordon had been the listing agent. 

Gordon refused to say how much he had paid for the bloc of buildings, which consist of six retail spaces, only saying that he paid a reasonable price. He added that he would have to put a lot of money into renovations. Escrow closed on the building around the beginning of March. 

Gordon said he has submitted his renovation plans to the city for design review. He said the building is not listed on any historic registry, so no review by the Landmarks Preservation Commission would be required. 

The corner building, built around 1906, is possibly the oldest commercial structure in the Elmwood commercial district, said Anthony Bruce, a staff member of the Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association. 

Should things turn out as Gordon hopes, the bedraggled old hulk may soon shed decades of stuccoed neglect like a chrysalis and emerge anew in all her former glory—at least as soon as Gordon can find out just what that was. 

“We’re looking for pictures,” said Gordon, a leading player in Berkeley’s commercial real estate world both as a broker and, increasingly, as a property owner teamed with partner Jim Novosel. 

The sale hangs a cloud over the future of one tenant, Wright Automotive, whose lease is soon to expire, Gordon acknowledged. 

Wright is one of three businesses which have been located in the attached storefronts extending west along Ashby Avenue. One, Picture It Sold!, an outfit that displays and sells customer belongings on e-Bay, le3ft months ago for a West Berkeley location, and the other, Dream Fluff Donuts, has a solid lease and “we intend to keep them,” said Gordon. 

But the car repair shop is another question. 

An in-person inquiry about the fate of the garage met with a terse response Monday. 

“You’ll have to talk to the owner,” declared a gentleman with receding salt-and-pepper hair. “Not the owner of this business, but the owner of the building.” 

“Is that something the neighborhood wants?” Gordon mused aloud. “But that’s for the second phase,” he adds. “Right now, I’m worried about the corner building.” 

Gordon is asking the public’s help in locating any photographs that might show the building in its earlier incarnations to aid in restoration.  

Workers have already removed a small section of stucco next to a second floor window on the Ashby Avenue side of the corner building, revealing the original alternating wide and narrow planking that once faced the street and may do so again. 

Restoration won’t be simple. Gordon says he’ll be installing a new roof, handicapped restrooms and other upgrades, along with a voluntary seismic retrofit. 

Once the main building is restored, the question then becomes, who moves in? 

That’s not a simple question in the Elmwood, which is one of Berkeley’s regulated commercial districts, where certain businesses are restricted by a quota system established to protect existing businesses, especially those serving the surrounding residential community. 

“It took months to figure out the quota system on College,” said Gordon. “The quotas in the neighborhood were done 20 years ago, and a lot of things are very different now.” 

The neighborhood is currently maxed out on eat-in restaurants, bookstores and clothiers. The latter category prompted the most recent quota battle, triggered by the latest expansion of the ever-growing Jeremy’s clothing outlet catercorner from Gordon’s new building. 

Gordon said he is working closely with Moriarty, City Councilmember Gordon Wozniak and neighborhood councils in the area to make sure the final project addresses their concerns.›