‘Vertical construction’ begins at People’s Park

A photograph captured by drone of People’s Park on Monday, March 3, shows the T-shaped student housing complex beginning to take shape. Credit: Phil Rowntree

Berkeley’s most controversial student housing project is starting to rise behind the double-stacked shipping container walls at People’s Park.

Foundation work on the long-contested site is mostly complete and “vertical construction” work began last week, according to an update issued Friday. Crews have begun pouring concrete for the building’s lower levels and are using a tower crane to start building upwards, the university wrote on its project website. 

UC Berkeley plans to build an 11-story, 1,113-bed, apartment-style student housing complex intended for sophomores, juniors and seniors at the site in the Southside neighborhood where activists who see the park as a symbol of counterculture resistance have clashed for decades with authorities.

Images taken by drone Monday showed the exterior walls of the complex’s 11-story North Wing beginning to take shape, with many large columns rising out of the ground. Work will begin later on the shorter six-story South Wing, which will be raised to create what Cal describes as an “open and airy pass-through” to the glade area. 

A photograph captured by a drone of the People’s Park site, looking eastward from above Telegraph Avenue. The North Wing of the student housing complex can be seen rising in the foreground, with the foundation for the South Wing jutting off perpendicularly toward the right. Credit: Phil RowntreeA view of the park as construction began in July 2024. Credit: Phil Rowntree

“The building’s structure will continue to rise throughout the rest of 2024,” UC Berkeley spokesperson Kyle Gibson wrote in an email. He said the project is still on track to open for the start of the fall semester 2027. 

Gibson said he expects the construction noise to decrease over time as work shifts from earthwork and grading to exterior construction and finally to building interiors. 

“The shipping containers placed around the site perimeter provide better noise reduction than a traditional chain-link fence, helping to minimize impacts on the surrounding area,” Gibson wrote.

The project began in January 2024 with a shocking show of force when UC Berkeley set up police-guarded barricades in the Southside neighborhood and cordoned off the 2.8-acre park with shipping containers in an effort to fend off park defenders and protesters who have since 1969 repeatedly torn down fences built by the university.  

People’s Park in January 2024, as the shipping container wall was still being built. Credit: Phil Rowntree

Construction began six months later after the California Supreme Court ruled against neighborhood groups and park activists who sought to block the development and argued the university had violated environmental regulations during its planning process. 

UC Berkeley’s design for People’s Park originally included plans for a 100-unit supportive housing building for formerly homeless Berkeley residents on the site’s west end, near Telegraph Avenue. The original developer in 2023 pulled out of the project amid the lengthy legal battle. Gibson said the university will issue a request for qualifications (RFQ) to select a new developer for the proposed supportive housing later this month and hopes to make  a selection by the summer. Construction of the supportive housing can only begin once the new student housing and park space are complete, as the area is needed for construction work, he added. 

People’s Park in September 2021. Credit: Dronegenuity

During construction, park activists have staged multiple small-scale peaceful demonstrations that Gibson said have not disrupted construction.

In February, defenders of the park planted wildflower seeds in an unofficial community garden on a small strip of land between Bowditch Street and the shipping container wall. The action was part of a wider Valentine’s Day protest organized by Berkeley High students, according to Enrique Marisol, a People’s Park activist and UC Berkeley alumni. Marisol wrote in an email the garden is still growing “despite police telling us that our plants would be removed” and that they intend to create another mural on Bowditch Street. 

A construction crane was visible Monday above the shipping container wall, topped by spirals of barbed wire. Credit: Ximena Natera, Berkeleyside/CatchLight Local

In November 2024, several protesters climbed onto the shipping containers. Police monitored the situation until the protestors eventually climbed down and disbursed on their own. No arrests or citations were made, Gibson wrote.

UC Berkeley, which has had archaeological and tribal monitors on site during excavation work, said no Indigenous cultural resources or human remains have been discovered at the site. Major ground-disturbing activities for the new student housing and park space are largely complete, according to Gibson.