The Future of Berkeley’s Civic Center

Reimagining the heart of Berkeley

Berkeley is home to a culture of academic curiosity, local commerce, and participatory public life, yet, the city’s civic center fails to reflect the surrounding wealth of community resources and offerings. The city worked with Gehl to develop a vision, multiple design concepts and an implementation plan for Berkeley’s Civic Center area, through a transparent public process rooted in analyses of local needs, technical factors, and social mapping.

The Civic Center Vision Plan is funded by a Measure T1 bond that dedicated $100 million worth of bonds to revamp the City’s aging infrastructure and facilities. The Vision includes conceptual design alternatives for the Veterans Memorial Building, Old City Hall, Civic Center Park, along with streets and adjacent structures necessary for context-sensitive solutions. Gehl facilitated and drafted the community Vision Plan to determine how the allocated funds would be distributed and prioritize capital improvements.

A vision for and by the community

With the help of 21 volunteers over two days, Gehl’s Public Space Public Life (PSPL) study helped contextualize the social and physical conditions of the site and identified future opportunities for positive change.

The PSPL survey revealed that despite its geographic centrality, the Civic Center falls short on its potential to act as a center of public life and activity, especially when compared to other civic spaces and public squares. People aren’t choosing to stay or move through the space. Even during the popular Saturday Farmers’ Markets, there’s not much spillover into the park.

The team held several Public Meeting, including an Open House at Berkeley’s YMCA, and a workshop with local high school students

In order to reach as many and as diverse a swath of the population as possible, the team held public meetings, conducted intercept surveys with passersby, mediated stakeholder conversations with key committees and municipal groups, and developed a public website to engage residents with online forums and surveys. During Covid-19, engagement had to transition to being digital-only. The team quickly pivoted and was able to capture an even larger audience with virtual public meetings and an interactive website that directly gathered community input.

One of three conceptual design options presented to Berkeley’s City Council and the community. Digital engagement, like 'Chris'' comment above, replaced in-person touch-points as Covid-19 Shelter-in-Place orders took place in 2020.