Editorials

As members of a Downtown Area Plan Advisory Committee (DAPAC) discuss the future of Center Street in a meeting room upstairs, Berkeley Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) members will meet Thursday downstairs to consider a proposed new Center Street Landmark. 

The proposed landmark is the Ennor’s Restaurant Building—better known to latter-day Berkeleyans as the old Act I & Act II Theater at 2128-2130 Center St. 

Recently acquired by developer Patrick Kennedy, the building had housed a small multiplex theater closed earlier this year by operator Landmark Theaters. 

Preservationist John English worked on the proposed landmark designation the commission will consider at its 7:30 p.m. meeting in the North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst Ave. at Martin Luther King Jr. Way. 

Meeting upstairs in a session that starts a half-hour earlier is DAPAC’s Center Street Subcommittee, which is considering planned UC Berkeley developments along with other elements of the future of the one-block stretch of Center between Shattuck Avenue and Oxford Street. 

Other hearings scheduled for the LPC meeting include the proposed landmarking of 1340 Arch St. and another in the many hearings slated on unauthorized repairs to a landmarked home at 147 Tunnel Road. 

Two previews are planned that won’t require any action. In the first, owner Tad Laird will give the LPC a look at his proposal to restore the exterior of his just-landmarked Bolfing’s Elmwood Hardware Building and add three living units on a new second floor. 

The building is located at 2149-2151 College. 

The second project preview will feature developer Ed Levitch’s plans for the Martin Building, a Queen Anne cottage at 2411 Fifth St., which was designated a structure of merit in August over the owner’s ojections. 

The commission will also discuss proposed amendments to the Zoning Ordinance about the Zoning Adjustments Board’s Design Review Committee, regulations that clarify the body’s role and limit appeals from its decisions. 

City redevelopment staff will discuss measures planned to mitigate construction impacts from the Aquatic Park Connection project, particularly as it impacts the landmarked Berkeley Shellmound.