In the News

Wareham proposes 13-story tower

By David Goll – East Bay Business Times

March 30, 2007 -- A proposed 13-story, 169-foot-high office tower could help Emeryville with some of its most pressing issues, including toxic waste cleanup and public transit improvement.

Though the project planned for the corner of 59th and Horton streets near the Amtrak station would soar 89 feet above the current height limit allowed by the city, officials of Wareham Development Inc. plan to seek a variance to allow its construction, which they say will cost at least $100 million.

The current proposal calls for a 250-space parking garage and intermodal transit center on the first six floors - the exterior of which would be covered with ivy or some other plant material - while the upper seven floors likely to be sheathed in glass would contain space for private businesses, including offices and research laboratories.

It could be open as early as 2009 in a city that has transformed itself over the past two decades from a town of heavy industry to a compact, increasingly vertical center of business, retail and residential development.

The site now houses a 125-space surface parking lot that covers a multitude of industrial sins: soil filled with polychlorinated biphenyls, better known as PCBs, that were deposited during years of manufacturing activity by Westinghouse Electric Corp. at this site and others around the city. Other pollutants have been detected, as well.

The production of PCBs, mixtures of up to 209 individual chlorinated compounds, was banned in the United States 30 years ago because of evidence they build up in the environment and can lead to harmful health effects. Products made before 1977 that may contain PCBs include fluorescent lighting fixtures, electrical devices containing capacitors and hydraulic oils.

"This project is a way of meeting some public goals using some private money," said Geoffrey Sears, a partner at Wareham, which has built numerous East Bay projects, including the Emeryville Amtrak station, EmeryStation I and EmeryStation North.

Sears said his company is involved in negotiations with the city and CBS Broadcasting Inc., the television network that bought out Westinghouse, to devise and finance a cleanup plan for the site. The pollutants were gathered and deposited on the site more than 20 years ago, contained in what Sears described as an upside-down, cone-shaped structure made of bentonite, a claylike substance often used for toxic material storage.

"This was a very state-of-the-art way to deal with toxic waste materials in the 1980s, but not so much anymore," he said.

More recently, a municipal parking garage was proposed for the site, but Sears said city officials decided it was "not desirable."

"It became clear private money would be needed to help pay for the accomplishment of public goals," Sears said.

He said the private upper portion of the tower would help pay not only for the toxic waste cleanup that could cost from $10 million to $12 million, but for the lower, transit-oriented floors that would double the amount of parking now on the site. More importantly, he added, it would connect San Francisco-bound Amtrak passengers to bus transport across the Bay Bridge. They number about 100,000 riders a month, helping make Emeryville's Amtrak station the state's second-busiest train terminal behind Union Station in downtown Los Angeles.

"The structure would be much closer to the front of the trains at the Emeryville station, making it more convenient for passengers to make bus connections," he said, adding the transit center would also have space for car sharing, taxis and other alternatives to solo driving.

The surface level would have 22-foot-high ceilings, Sears said, allowing for taller vehicles and proper ventilation of fumes.

Though the building is likely to prove controversial because of its height, Sears said the city has permitted much taller buildings along its waterfront jutting into San Francisco Bay, as well as the nearby 30-story, 318-foot Pacific Park Plaza condominium tower along Christie Avenue.

Patrick O'Keeffe, Emeryville's economic development director, said the unusual public-private development proposed by Wareham is the last undeveloped parcel in the Amtrak station area master-planned by the city in the mid-1990s