Student housing complex could be Berkeley’s tallest building

Chicago-based student housing developer Core Spaces is resubmitting plans to Berkeley to increase a proposed project from 17 stories to 26 stories, according to public records.

If approved, the 288 feet apartment building would be the tallest in Berkeley.

The project is known as Hub Berkeley and will be located at the intersection of Oxford and Center streets. The building will be right across the street from the university and feature 485 apartments, including 200 more than the initial proposal. Plans also call for the project to include a 4,000-square-foot restaurant on its top floor, part of 13,500 total square feet of commercial space in the complex.

The project is the tallest of three planned highrise downtown apartment buildings up for approval. Other developers have proposed a slightly shorter 26-story building at 1974 Shattuck Avenue and a 25-story project at 2190 Shattuck Avenue.

Core Spaces decided to increase the size of its project after seeing the project at 2190 Shattuck go beyond Berkeley’s 190-foot height cap by utilizing California’s density bonus law, which allows developers to build beyond local zoning requirements if the project contains a certain percentage of affordable housing units. Hub Berkeley will have 47 affordable units, including 42 for renters who are considered very low income and five for those considered extremely low income.

Berkeley has been looking for ways to build more student housing after a lawsuit was filed against the university in March. Save Berkeley Neighborhoods argues that the UC violated the California Environmental Quality Act, or CEQA, by increasing enrollment by 30 percent over the past 17 years without properly analyzing the effects more students would have on housing, among other local circumstances.

The university was ordered to cut in-person fall enrollment by 2,629 and the city has been working to address the housing concerns of students and residents, including revamping zoning ordinances. Currently, just 22 percent of roughly 40,000 students live in housing owned by the school, according to the recent report.