by Doug Oakley
Contra Costa Times
August 9, 2011
Berkeley and Emeryville officials wooed representatives from Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory on Monday, in hopes the institution will choose their cities to build a second campus for 800 scientists.
The meeting in Emeryville was the last of six held over the past three weeks that included Oakland, Richmond and Albany as possible sites for a new lab facility.
At each meeting, cities tried to show why their sites are the best. When the process is over and the second campus is finished in 2016, 800 scientists will go to work in 500,000 square feet of labs and offices, a size that could grow to 2 million square feet over time.
Landing the lab in any of the six proposed sites would be a boon for jobs and spending. Monday night’s proposal by Wareham Development was actually three in one: One alternative in Berkeley would house the lab on an 18-acre site just north of Ashby Avenue and Seventh Street; a second option would be located in Emeryville at Emery Station near the Amtrak Station; and a third would use both sites.
On hand to hear the proposals were lab Director Paul Alivisatos and Chief Operating Officer Jim Krupnick.
The site in Emeryville would use existing buildings — the lab’s Joint Bioenergy Institute is already there.
The site in Berkeley already houses the lab’s Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis and the lab’s life sciences division.
While Berkeley officials, including the city manager, the economic development manager and City Councilman Darryl Moore promoted Berkeley during the meeting, it was Emeryville officials who pulled out all the stops.
Speaking in favor of the Emeryville proposal were the city manager, deputy superintendent of schools, the fire chief, the deputy fire marshal, the police chief, the head of the chamber of commerce, the director of community services, the director for the Emeryville center for the arts and a group of school children who spoke about the educational possibilities of the lab partnering with Emeryville schools.
Emeryville police Chief Ken James promised quick responses to lab employees who find themselves in need of the law.
Mayor Nora Davis said Emeryville is the kind of place that embraces development.
“We have a track record of building things and getting it done,” Davis said. “If (the lab) wants to build a beautiful, sustainable campus in a city that is willing to start tomorrow, they will have chosen the right place.”
Emeryville fire Chief Kevin Johnston said the city is small enough to get problems solved with one phone call.
“You can actually call someone here, a city councilman or the fire chief, and get things done,” Johnston said. “And rest assured, with all the scientific labs that are already here, we have the expertise to deal with complicated buildings in an emergency.”
Krupnick said that while the lab will pick a preferred site for its second campus in November, that could change as it goes through the environmental impact review process that could take more than a year.
Doug Oakley covers Berkeley. Contact him at doakley@bayareanewsgroup
510-843-1408. Follow him at Twitter.com/douglasoakley.
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Very important to note that because the Lab is a government institution, it will not pay property taxes and will not have to comply with local zoning laws.
Why isn’t anyone talking about the negative impact on property taxes? If there are financial positives they need to be quantified and laid out clearly so we can examine them. This assumes Emeryville has ANY discretion in the first place – if this is a lease and they are exempt from zoning laws it sounds like we can throw a party to welcome them, or we can ignore them, but we can’t actually DO anything.
Sounds like they would be exempt from any business permit fees and from any payroll tax should Emeryville ever have one.
So apart from the prestige factor what’s left?
And yes, I want the developer to have a credit worthy tenant like this as a business matter, it just seems like we would be shocked and not thrilled by the loss of property tax revenue at a time when the Emeryville Child Development Center has made drastic fiscal cutbacks due to lost city revenues.
I hope Emeryville will be careful to pencil out the economic reality of attracting the entire campus lab development to Emeryville.
This many square feet of prime business space not paying taxes has an economic cost. It might be in Emeryville’s interest economically speaking to have the majority of the lab in West Berkeley and we get the overflow service businesses that will pay their taxes. I hope the staff does their homework on this issue and is not blinded by a continuous need to market our city and use too many projects as a loss leaders.
Sincerely,
Scott Donahue