Features

Though the UC Berkeley’s massive Memorial Stadium-area expansion plans have been stalled by a court order, the university is moving forward with a seismic study. 

In a Request for Qualifications (RFQ) posted on the university website, the university provided a first look at drawings of a proposed parking lot that would contain “700+ spaces in 5 to 6 underground levels.” 

A cross-section diagram for the Maxwell Field Parking structure also show a subsurface path for delivery trucks leading directly to the stadium itself, which sits directly astride the Hayward Fault, but another diagram from an aerial view is truncated before the stadium so the point of connection isn’t visible. 

Mandated by the Alquist-Priolo Act, which governs construction on and near active seismic faults, the study will determine whether or not the planned structure falls within the 50 feet of an active fault trace, the limit of the act’s ban on new construction. 

Critics have charged that another project, the $125 million Student Athlete High Performance Center planned along the stadium’s western wall, is attached to the stadium and therefore an extension, not a separate building—but university officials say the structures are separate.  

The RFQ also requires the consultant to cooperate with a second “independent peer reviewer reporting directly to the university and its agents” and to cooperate with the university’s Seismic Review Committee “to ensure a highly credible end product.” 

Museum RFQ 

In addition to the parking structure RFQ, the university issued a second document seeking a consultant to prepare a separate seismic evaluation of plans for the Berkeley Art Museum/Pacific Film Archive building, which is slated to be built downtown at the northwest corner of the intersection of Center and Oxford streets. 

Now being designed by internationally renowned Japanese architect Toyo Ito, the new structure—likely to be the most innovative architecture in the city center in years—will be 82 feet high, Kevin Consey, the institution’s executive director, has said. 

Located on the site now occupied by the UC Printing Plant building, a city landmark where the United Nations Charter was printed, the new building will feature one or two levels of underground parking, according to the RFQ. 

The new consultant will work with Ito and project engineers during the design process, starting with a review of existing soil and geological conditions at the site and continue through construction, monitoring the work. 

Applications for both assignments must be submitted by Mar. 19.