Stadium Plan Approved - Bring On The Lawsuits
Last night, a committee of regents unanimously approved the Environmental Impact Report for the stadium project, paving the way for the University to begin taking bids in January, and to hopefully break ground in March. Whoo-hoo! ‘Bout damn time.
University officials considered several other sites for this project, but ultimately concluded, and the regents agreed, that this site posed the fewest drawbacks, and most importantly, the building would be seismically safe. Regents also 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.
Unfortunately, it also paves the way for the City of Berkeley, and possibly other groups, to file lawsuits against UC to try and stop the project, as I detailed in yesterday’s post. BOOOOOO!
"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."
A couple of interesting tidbits regarding this project:
- According to Jeff 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.
- Last Monday, UC Berkeley’s Memorial Stadium was added to the National Register of Historic Places.
- This story contains several really promising artist’s renderings of the project, if you haven’t seen them before.
