Berkeleyan

Sproul Plaza renovation project to begin during spring break

17 March 2004

A million-dollar upgrade to Sproul Plaza, the gateway to the Berkeley campus, will get underway next Monday, the first day of spring break. Work will continue until the end of June, requiring some route-finding adjustment on the part of those accustomed to traversing the plaza en route to classes and appointments. (Alternate pedestrian routes to central campus locations ordinarily accessed via Sproul Plaza are indicated on the map at left.)

The Golden Bear Café, on the western border of Sproul Plaza, will remain open during the project. The student activities that normally animate the plaza will be relocated to Lower Sproul Plaza for the duration, with amplification permitted during currently approved time periods.

Sproul Plaza “provides an all-important sense of place” to the campus, says Chancellor Robert Berdahl, who, looking ahead to June, when he steps down after seven years at Berkeley, views the refurbishment as an important part of his legacy. “When the work is completed this summer,” he says, “the plaza will be ready for decades of more celebrations, rallies, and protests.”

For information about the Sproul Plaza upgrade project, visit www.cp.berkeley.edu/Projects_Info_Notices.htm.