Emeryville Loses Prestigious Lab To Richmond

Reprinted from the San Francisco Chronicle:

UC picks Richmond for lab biosciences campus Henry K. Lee, Chronicle Staff Writer Monday, January 23, 2012 (01-23) 10:47 PST RICHMOND -- The University of California said today it has chosen a site in Richmond for a new biosciences campus of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The Richmond Field Station, which UC already owns, "presents the best opportunity to solve the lab's pressing space problems, while allowing for long-term growth and maintaining the 80-year tradition of close cooperation with the UC Berkeley campus," lab officials said. The field station is located near Interstate 580 in the southeastern part of the city. Richmond beat out Alameda, Albany, Berkeley, Emeryville and Oakland to win the campus. UC will now develop environmental impact studies and seek final approval from the U.S. Department of Energy, which contracts with UC to run the lab. "Each city, community, and their developer partners presented extremely thoughtful and well-formulated proposals for us to consider," said lab director Paul Alivisatos. The new lab and its spinoff businesses could transform the surrounding area in Richmond into a thriving scientific hub, with a proliferation of cafes, restaurants and other businesses catering to the hundreds of scientists and researchers expected to work there. Richmond officials hailed the selection and planned to hold a news conference to discuss the next steps. "I would like to thank the Richmond City Council for their enthusiastic support for this important economic development project, the many city of Richmond staff members who worked to provide technical support in the decision-making process, and the Richmond community for providing the warm welcome mat that was undoubtedly a major factor in their decision," said City Manager Bill Lindsay. E-mail Henry K. Lee at hlee@sfchronicle.com.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/01/23/BAJE1MT8S9.DTL#ixzz1kJNaP4rr

Emeryville Selected As 1 Of 6 Sites For Prestigeous Lab

Re-printed from the San Francisco Business Times:

New site

Lawrence Berkeley Lab picks six finalists for second campus

San Francisco Business Times - by Blanca Torres

Date: Monday, May 9, 2011, 1:40pm 

Blanca TorresReporter

• Email: btorres@bizjournals.com

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has identified six finalists in cities including Alameda, Berkeley, Oakland, Emeryville, Albany and Richmond for its potential second campus site.

The selection comes after the lab reviewed 21 submissions responding to a request for proposals due in March.

“The large number of visionary responses created by so many communities in the East Bay is an impressive reminder of the value that our region places on science in service of society,” said Berkeley Lab Director Paul Alivisatos, in a statement. “And now that we have identified our top candidates, we look forward to working with them as we move closer to selecting a preferred site.”

The finalists include:

• Alameda Point, a former Navy base, in Alameda, proposed by the City of Alameda
• Berkeley Aquatic Park West in west Berkeley, proposed by a team led by Michael and Steve Goldin.
• Brooklyn Basin in Oakland, proposed by the Oakland Harbor Partners, developers of the Oak to Ninth project including Signature Properties.
• Emeryville/Berkeley, proposed by TMG Partners and Wareham Development.
• Golden Gate Fields, spanning the cities of Berkeley and Albany, proposed by MI Development.
• Richmond Field Station, a site currently owned by the University of California in Richmond.

The lab wants a second campus within 20 to 25 minutes of the original campus in the Berkeley that has enough land capacity to accommodate future growth and has easy access to public transportation and other amenities.

The RFP called for a site that can accommodate up to 2 million square feet of lab, office and research and development space including a 3,000-foot-long building.

Officials from the lab had hoped to release their short list in April, but the selection took longer than they originally expected. The lab has altered its timeline and now expects to make a final decision by November, instead of this summer, and move into the second campus in mid-2016.

The request for proposals drew interest developers and city leaders from sites over the Oakland Hills in Walnut Creek and Dublin as well the cities adjacent to Berkeley.

The second campus has been a highly sought after opportunity because of its potential to bring hundreds of jobs as well as spin-off companies and other economic benefits.

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Email Blanca Torrres at btorres@bizjournals.com