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Tenants and customers of West Berkeley’s landmark Sawtooth Building have been granted an extra month to use a parking lot they say is critical to their commercial survival. 

Bayer Healthcare had posted signs in December announcing the impending closure of a lot leased by the city on Parker Street across from the building with the jagged roofline. 

John Curl, a building tenant, said meetings with Councilmember Darryl Moore, City Manager Phil Kamlarz and Bayer officials have produced an agreement to keep the lot open till the end of February. 

A longer-term solution may also be within reach, he said, though he didn’t want to say what it might be since negotiations are currently underway between the city and the Bavarian-based multinational. 

Another public meeting under the councilmember’s aegis has been tentatively set for Feb. 18, where more news may be announced, Curl said. 

“It’s really important for us,” he said, adding that tenants who leased performance spaces in the building would be destroyed if they lost access to a nearby parking lot.