By Matt Krupnick and Kristin Bender
University of California leaders have signed off on a plan to renovate UC Berkeley's aging football stadium and construct a multimillion-dollar athletic training facility, a move that all but guarantees the project will wind up in court. A UC Board of Regents committee voted 7-0 Tuesday to allow the Berkeley campus to begin construction on the facility next to Memorial Stadium, which straddles the Hayward fault. Berkeley city leaders, concerned about safety, emergency access and massive traffic jams stemming from a 900-space parking lot, last month authorized a lawsuit to stop the project if the regents allowed it to proceed. The city has 30 days to sue. "Unfortunately, we are going to proceed to bring a lawsuit to stop this plan," Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates said Tuesday night. "I think it's not safe for this building to go there. We are sorry we are at this place, but we are going to proceed and go to court." Regents considered the legal threats in a closed meeting before their vote, and several residents urged the board to reject the $112 million project. But regents were convinced the new building could not be constructed elsewhere. UC Berkeley athletic director Sandy Barbour said after the vote at UC San Francisco that she was relieved to be allowed to move forward. "This has been a project that is tremendously important to our entire campus," she said. "The planning process was approached with great care and sensitivity." Tuesday's approval gives the university more leverage in keeping football coach Jeff Tedford in Berkeley. According to Tedford's contract, groundbreaking on the project -- set for March -- will double the amount he would have to pay the university to opt out of his remaining years. The new building will house athletic offices and training facilities and is considered an essential step to the subsequent seismic retrofit of 83-year-old Memorial Stadium. No specific designs have been compiled for the stadium, and games will continue to be played there until plans are drawn and money is raised for the retrofit.
The campus project also includes a 900-space parking structure at the current site of Maxwell Family Field and improvements along Piedmont Avenue and Gayley Road. Residents have objected to several aspects of the construction, including the loss of treasured hillside views and the removal of at least 42 oak trees adjacent to the stadium. Three protesters who chained themselves Saturday to some of the oak trees slated to be uprooted say they plan to stay in the trees indefinitely. "They are absolutely committed to staying up in the trees until the grove is safe and there are no plans to cut down any of the trees," said tree sit-in organizer Doug Buckwald. On Tuesday, Sierra Club leader Ellen Gunther told the regents that removing the trees would be environmentally irresponsible. "It's not good public relations for the university," she said. The Hayward fault, which seismologists say could produce a major earthquake in the next three decades, bisects Memorial Stadium, but a university study found no traces of the fault at the site of the planned building. Regents delayed a vote on the Berkeley project in November, shortly after the Berkeley City Council authorized its lawsuit.
Some at Tuesday's meeting, such as Cal athlete Leigh Whelpton, said the new building -- called the Student Athlete High Performance Center -- should be close to the stadium rather than at one of several other sites that were considered. "This is an instance of optimal land use and management," said Whelpton, a sophomore on the crew team. "Looking elsewhere isn't practical from the student-athlete perspective." The planned lawsuit against UC Berkeley would be the second one by the city in less than two years. In 2004, city officials sued the university over its 15-year development plan.
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