Sawtooth Building Artists Lose Parking Lot To Bayer

http://www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/news/print.asp?id=23623

Bayer Healthcare’s impending closure of a parking lot used by many Berkeley visitors and residents of the Sawtooth Building is threatening the art community there and galvanizing tenants to come up with alternative solutions. Bayer is planning to use the lot for its own parking needs to replace space that will be lost due to construction of a new research building. The Sawtooth Building houses a number of dance and yoga studios, which attract large numbers of clients in the evening hours who park in that lot. Closure of the lot means many clients will have to park blocks away, raising concerns about safety and the loss of business. Also, the building is popular with artists and artisans who occupy workshops and studios in the subdivided factory floor space because the rents there are still affordable. Thus, the closure of the parking lot will have a deep impact on the building and its residents. Alternative options include adding eight parking spaces by restriping spaces from parallel to angle parking and installing two-hour meters, none of which are satisfactory to the building tenants. The additional angled parking lots would be insufficient, and metered parking would be disruptive because tenants will have to leave their businesses to shuffle their cars throughout the day. Another solution is a business development district (BID) that levies fees on businesses, but not residents, to provide new transportation, infrastructure and policing services for the district. However, the BID option is still contentious. Tenants were able to petition for a one-month extension of their continued use of the parking lot, which buys them a bit more time to come up with alternative options.