Great, just what Berkeley needs: ballot-box parcel-by-parcel preservationism. Even if this makes it to the ballot, I seriously hope if it fails, because if it passes it will be one more example of Berkeley demanding the impossible or impractical—even if it means stagnation.

Yes, it would feel nice if Berkeley Iceland could stay an ice rink, but there simply isn’t enough demand to sustain it as such and no one’s ponying up the money to subsidize it.  We should be jumping for joy at this chance to turn Ice Land into something that contributes both to the community and to City coffers. Or we could spend precious dollars propping up Berkeley Ice Land and be one step closer to the budgetary situation of that more distant Iceland.

Looking at what Berkeley Iceland has become, versus what it could be
under the plans Sports Basement has put forward, it seems that what
Berkeley Iceland really needs saving from is the delays and delusions of
Save Berkeley Iceland.

You have a Bay Area based retailer eager to renovate what is probably the largest unoccupied building in Southeast Berkeley (a historic structure nonetheless, something i’m sure is a huge put-off to any potential developer), and yet there are still residents who are eager to stop this. In a perfect city we’d have the ice rink, but Berkeley is anything but perfect, so instead we have blight.

The most frustrating part for me is that i’ve been to and benefited from a recreational event hosted at an SF Sports Basement store. They actively advertises their stores as being “like a second home to local athletes and groups who use our space daily for club meetings, to host potlucks, to start a
workout from our front doors, or to pick up some tips at a speaker series event,” so it’s hard for me to see the interests of Save Berkeley Iceland as being benevolent and based in a desire for community recreational resources.

After enough years of this type of stuff, living in Berkeley will most certainly turn me conservative.

Damn.  There should be a line break between the quote and my comments and I can’t edit it.  Sorry.

The choice between keeping Berkeley Iceland empty and filling it with Sports Basement is a false one. Before Sports Basement was in contract, there was another offer to buy the site for a mixed use development including a restored public ice rink. The owners, not seeing any support for the rink development from some of our City leaders, choose Sports Basement’s offer. There were other plans that included the rink being developed at that time as well, so the likelihood of it remaining empty was next to nothing. In fact, had the current owners invested some of the money they wasted to try to keep the ability to knock down the historic building, the site would not have been empty as long and the community would have a real public recreation ice center.

Actually about the same time and their asking price was $2 million over what we believe the current price to be (based on offers we know about). SBI was in contract to buy it for $6.25 million, as outlined in the timeline, with the hope to renegotiate a better price (especially after Mayor Bates told us we were paying too much). The combination of this price, the financial crisis drying up funding for new nonprofits, and lack of support by potential donors for the contract we were in meant we could not renew that contract after the initial 9 months. I believe there were other factors involved, but I admit my prospective may not be independent (any more than the linked timeline is an independent prospective).

Were you even living in
Berkeley when the rink was targeted with municipal harassment?  Berkeley
Iceland was a THRIVING business that served as the best youth program in the
whole city when a personal friend of the mayor became interested in the site
for a housing project.  It was targeted with a stream of bogus “code
violations” and unreasonable demands.  The Planning, Building and
Legal Departments were heavily involved in the harassment, and the end result
was that the rink was forced out of business.

Greg -

Happy to comment further – been doing that a lot over the years :-). I also freely admit that my views are heavily weighted toward the goals of Save Berkeley Iceland, which, to address your comment, is to both preserve the building and restore the ice rink. Which tactics of our organization are you referring to – our efforts to protect an historic structure? Our commitment to reopening the rink?

For the other questions -

“Support from the city” covers a wide range of topics from simply having the mayor and the city council express the desire to have a public community center to helping finance the restoration of the rink. The latter is not one we have every asked for, but we had hoped when presented with an option that included the rink and housing that we would get something other than “meh” (or the equivalent thereof). When we approached potential donors and development partners, one of the first questions we would get is does the city support this? Realistically, we were never confident that the answer was yes. 

The alternative offer was competitive, I believe. The linked timeline document from the current owner’s attorney has some inaccuracies in what happened in April to June 2010, but the offer was made by a San Francisco developer (and a major Cal Foundation member), who had the cash to purchase the site, based on a design by the former dean of Cal’s environmental design school. After making his initial offer, the owner’s agent suggested the developer start building some support for the design and project. He did this by taking the initial design concepts and showing the mayor and key council members as well as groups in the historic preservation community. The latter were pretty happy with the designs and supportive of the project. The former said they didn’t care if it was a rink or a store.. While doing this groundwork, the owners agent informed the developer that they had entered into exclusive discussions with Sports Basement and that he would not have a chance to make any further bids. During this time, the developer was in regular contact with the owners agent. The developer is still interested in the project if the space becomes available. I should also note this was not an SBI project, but one we supported because it provided a path to a restored rink.

This project would remove the berms, which is a compromise we would make to get the rink restored. However, there would be mitigation of this removal by more than just a shaded image on the new wall (which is the Sports Basement proposal, so far). Rather than having a stark 30 foot wall above the bare parking lot, it would extend the sloping structure to the curbside with landscaping showing where the berms had been. The impact would be far less than simple removal of the berms [our original designs kept everything within the current footprint but with significant changes on the interior, but that would take a lot more funding than is currently available, but might have a chance if everyone got behind it]. 

Being in Berkeley, I can understand skepticism about our intentions and possible development plans. SBI is a bunch of community people who care about the place and will continue to work towards getting the rink restored – we don’t shy from that goal. We did not support similar proposals because we had similar skepticism about the people asking for our support. We supported this one because the design came from a member of our board who pitched it to the developer he knew well and trusted. Anyone who has questions about SBI, what we do, and our commitment to the community is welcome to come to our regular meetings – they are always posted on the website and announced to our mailing lists. 

Joshua -

I, too, dislike anonymous postings with unfounded accusations. I have heard a lot of the conspiracy theories and don’t really believe them, for which I’ve been accused of being naive. I was on the fringes of what went on at the end and can understand how those who like them could create them from what were mostly people taking advantage of, for them, fortuitous set of events.

The facts as I understood them at the time (and subsequent conversations with both the Iceland management and city of Berkeley staff involved) include:

The owners had a “deferred maintenance” policy for more than 20 years only doing upgrades/work when really forced to. After a series of unintended ammonia releases (including one caused by work done to comply with a city request), the fire marshal expressed concern about the 65+ year old ammonia-based chiller unit. His legitimate concern was that the unit was old, did not have proper monitoring, and staff training was lacking. His concern was not on the ammonia itself, but with the equipment it was used in – he didn’t want to send first responders into a potentially lethal environment in the mechanical room without any idea of what might be in there. This got blown up to be far greater than it was by other parts of the city.

The city came down hard on Berkeley Iceland owners opening a potential can of worms for them. Iceland did not have the staff to respond to all of the city requests in a timely fashion, though I believe they were doing their best; Berkeley was not known as a friendly place for small businesses. When it appeared that the Iceland owners were serious about closing the rink, the city started an effort to make things easier, including centralizing the contacts and, reportedly, finding possible funding methods for upgrading equipment. Unfortunately, this was too little too late for the owners, who were howling about the city treatment but no one was listening beyond a small set of the community (part of the owner’s failings, in my opinion, was not leveraging the good will in the community they had built up and making use of that to deal with the city – marketing was never their strong suit). More than once I was told that the owners felt they were not appreciated by Berkeley – I can assure you they didn’t mean the community which used the rink.

After unsuccessful efforts to sell the rink as a rink (keep in mind this was 2007/2008), they decided to sell it as land, hoping that the building could be knocked down for a new owners use. A group of us felt that the historic building should be preserved, which the owners fought for over 4 years. One event which fueled a number of theories was when the owners entered into a contract to sell Berkeley Iceland to a local housing developer closely related to a number of city leaders the morning that the owner’s appeal of the landmark designation was on that evenings City Council agenda; many were surprised when the City Council upheld the designation in a 5-4 vote; that deal subsequently fell through and the owners sued the city for the action and wasted more years. SBI also failed to perform during 2008 when we entered into an agreement which we had to abandon 9 months later.

Lots of this and more is on the Save Berkeley Iceland website (http://SaveBerkeleyIceland.org) and I’m happy to give my view any time in public and with attribution.

Oh,
my, so many assumptions.  The
owners live elsewhere, want out of the rink business and want the highest price
for the property.  The rink
managers, who actually cared about the rink, were very vocal in complaining that the city was persecuting
them, and were quoted in local newspapers at the time.  Here is a quote from an August 1, 2005 article in
the Daily Cal (still available on line at:  archive.dailycal.org/printable.php?id=19083):

“Wescott
said the dispute over the amount of ammonia and the ensuing threats by the city
to close the rink are part of a greater plan to shut down Iceland. “There
is no high risk in our facility,” he said. “I believe that the city
wants to shut us down. I believe that they don’t want Berkeley Iceland. I don’t
know why.”

There
were many articles written about the developer who wanted the property, and was
in contract to purchase it in 2007 with the intention of demolishing it for
condos.  Here is one: http://www.beyondchron.org/news/index.php?itemid=4722.

Greg -

Just to give an example of the type of support we would hope from is this article from December right here on Berkeleyside 

http://www.berkeleyside.com/2011/12/14/bates-city-needs-another-grocery-store-not-pharmacy/

Had Mayor Bates made similar statements of support for a community center at Berkeley Iceland the outcome could have been different.

 The one and only.   It’s not a coincidence.

Zach -

Those of us in Save Berkeley Iceland who skate (or related to serious skaters, like me) have and do make use of Oakland Ice Center and the even nicer (though smaller) SF rink at Yerba Buena. All of us have long histories of experiencing the rink as a community as well as recreation center – something that going to the Oakland rink doesn’t substitute for (and I could get into more esoteric discusion about the lack of ice time available in the Bay Area, but that is beside the point). 

The state of the building is deplorable and the responsibility of the East Bay Iceland, the owners (Richard Zamboni, president) to keep a landmark building from getting to that state; they attempted to use the state of the building to fight historic landmark designation. It is the responsibility of the City of Berkeley to enforce the regulations both on historic and nuisance grounds. SBI has offered to help clean up the graffiti in the past, but the owners site liability risks to decline the offer.

As I’ve written above a couple of times, the choice between Sports Basement and nothing is a false one. The owners decided to close the doors five years ago and never seriously considered working with the community to reopen it as a rink or any form of community center. You may disagree, but I believe that Berkeley needs a year-round, indoor recreation center where our kids can go more than it needs a large store. No matter how notable and good Sports Basement’s community actions are – and I do respect their outreach – it is not a substitute for a Berkeley Iceland where hundreds of kids can spend a rainy weekend afternoon enjoying the ice with friends and meeting new friends. This community, more than the skating itself, is what pushes the Save Berkeley Iceland folks. The rink is the centerpiece and avenue to making the center operations self sustaining.

Thank you for the information.

A very astute comment, Charles. After thinking about it I find myself neatly boxed into category 3.

I agree that it seems like a not-very-great location for anything other than a community center, housing, or a grocery store. But Iceland was able to make a successful go of it for a while, so something with sufficient draw should be able to do OK. I’m just not sure a retailer like Sports Basement is going to have that kind of draw.

Tom,

Your example may not show what you’d like it to show:

http://www.dailycal.org/2012/03/26/cvs-to-move-into-andronicos-former-telegraph-location/ 

Despite the mayor’s comments, and a legitimate offer on the table, that location will likely be another CVS.

The chance that comments alone could have swayed the Berkeley Iceland owners seems far-fetched, at best.

What I personally find objectionable is the use CEQA as a tool to indirectly get your desired outcome.  

Put another way:  If you had to choose between two projects, one that was nearly ideal in all of the EIR objections but had no ice rink and another which performed poorly in those areas but did include an ice rink which would your group back?

Given the purported project with housing in place of berms and no parking I suspect the latter.

I didn’t realize the article linked to the full text of the proposition until today.  It isn’t so bad, but it really should be tied to a bond measure (or some sort of commitment to funding by the city), or otherwise make known that to meet its stipulations will likely not be feasible without public funding.

As written it really does seem to preclude a private option that doesn’t have deep-pocketed benefactor.

In order for an ice-rink to be profitable, it would need to a city-wide
if not region-wide draw. I would argue that would make it large-scale,
at least by Berkeley standards. Moreover, what Save Berkeley Iceland is
proposing in their ballot measure is a lot more than an ice rink:

1. Public Recreation Space – Encourage planning to restore Berkeley Iceland as a location for healthy fun, sports, and entertainment for the entire community in a accepting and family-friendly environment. Plans should include facilities for expanded services related to recreation and community services including, but not limited to, therapeutic warm pools, training and dance studios, and community rooms…

3. Promotion of the Public Recreation and Community Center – Working with the City Parks, Recreation and Waterfront Department, Berkeley Unified School District, University of California, Berkeley YMCA, and other community organizations, the City of Berkeley will promote use of the restored Berkeley Iceland as a community recreation asset for the health of our citizens, especially the under-served youth of our community.

All of this sounds great in theory, but as written, the measure is an
unfunded mandate that–by accident or by design–will serve to keep the
building vacant and blighted for years to come. At best, we could build such a center, but the City would be on the hook for its enormous cost. I’m a pinko liberal, so I’d be more open than most to voting for taxes to fund such a project; but even so, I don’t think we should make this a matter of policy without at least being honest about the need for funding and what would likely happen without that funding.

The low-ball estimated cost of acquiring and renovating Berkeley Iceland was $12 million. The ballot measure proposes to throw in a warm-water pool, which would have cost upwards of $20 million per the failed Measure C. So being very generous and only assuming a total $25 million dollar cost for the whole project, that’s equivalent to 100 years of City employee YMCA memberships–and this is before operations and maintenance are even accounted for.

There may be an argument for making Iceland a recreation center, but cost savings ain’t one of them.

Here’s a possible “faster, cheaper, better” plan:

http://www.berkeleyside.com/2012/04/13/group-circulates-ballot-measure-to-preserve-ice-rink/#comment-499411483

Actually, if there was a ballot measure for the city to purchase the site to do just what you propose I would vote for it.  

Actually, I’d vote for a measure to fund a full restoration, so maybe I’m not the gold-standard of fiscal responsibility.

That said, the ballot measure as written is not something I could support.  It is not tied to any sort of funding.  Effectively it strikes me as a stall tactic to ward off any sort of private development that will only serve to maintain the status quo.

I’m not willing to accept a giant, permanent blighted eyesore in exchange for a tiny sliver of unreasonable hope.

This is where we would probably part ways:

For the city to step in and effectively require the owners to rent to them seems too onerous.  

Effectively this would prevent the current owners from selling the site despite having a reasonable offer on the table.  That offer might not be available 5-7.5 years from now.

Again, if a more forthright and reasonable proposition were put on the ballot I would vote for it (even a proposal with a $25M+ price tag with no timeline for completion).

Personally I would like to think Berkeley *is* the kind of city that would preserve such a place and offer such amenities to its citizens.
For obvious reasons the people behind this ballot measure don’t trust the majority of voters agree with that sentiment.

For the city to step in and effectively require the owners

Not what I’m thinking.  I’m thinking all “carrot” and little or no “stick”.   I think Sports Basement’s plans are in all probability already effectively blocked by the zoning status and need for CEQA review.    Even if they pass those hurdles that’s a lousy space for car access and there’s is a business that would seem to rely upon very good car access. 

A community center would also require CEQA review.  And, yes, ZAB and staff would have a lot “fun” figuring out how to classify this proposal but no doubt a UP(PH) would be part of it.  Superficially, it’s no less “easy” a plan.   Realistically, it’s a much better fit for an R-2A, for being next to a school, etc. — so I guess that the review and permitting would go much better.   The initial renovation costs would be lower.  The owner’s path to income would be lower.

I gather the idea is not on the table because the property is too encumbered by some unholy combination of contract, debt, and highly demanding (possibly unrealistic) ROI expectations.