Federal Funds Boost Disability Center: Transportation Bill Includes $2.5 Million For Berkeley Campus

Kristin Bender, Oakland Tribune, 8/9/2005

BERKELEY -- The federal government has awarded a $2.5 million construction grant to a one-stop center for disability services at the Ashby BART station.

The Ed Roberts Campus won federal funding from the $287 billion, six-year federal transportation bill that Congress passed July 29.

The bill also allocated $1.2 million for traffic improvements at the notoriously jumbled Gilman Street-Interstate 80 intersection in Berkeley.

The $2.5 million will be used to help build an 85,000-square-foot campus, bringing the total amount of funds raised to $18.4 million from private, local, state and federal sources.

Fund-raisers still need to collect $16.6 million more before construction begins next year.

"The fund raising is on schedule, but it is certainly entering its most intense phase," fund-raising director Joan Leon said. "The fund raising is being done while we do the design development, construction drawings, andfirm up who will be in the building as the partners."

When the Ed Roberts Campus is up and running in late 2008, it is expected to serve at least 500 people with disabilities daily, officials said.

"Being at the transit hub is key to serving large numbers of people who have been underserved," Leon said. "These are people who just can’t get to the services they need."

The $35 million campus is named after Roberts, a polio victim who was an early leader in the city’s independent-living movement as well as a student who helped pave the way for disabled student services at the University of California, Berkeley.

Roberts died in 1995 at the age of 56.

Touted as a "national model for independent living," the campus will be run by eight Bay Area nonprofits operating as partners and offering a broad range of programs from legal advocacy and job training to parenting support and wheelchair sports.

Leon said the partners are The Center for Independent Living, the World Institute on Disability, Through the Looking Glass, Disability Rights Education Defense Fund, Computer Technologies Program, the Center for Accessible Technology, Bay Area Outreach and Recreation Program, and Whirlwind Wheelchairs International.

"It will be a permanent center for disability services even though the partners may change over time," Leon said.

In addition to the partner tenants, there will be space for one large tenant and two or three smaller ones. Leon said officials have received numerous letters of interest from prospective nonprofits.

While fund raising is on track, the project has hit snags in the past, including one last year because of a use permit delay. And earlier this year, local preservationists claimed the city did not adequately study how the campus would mesh with century-old buildings in the area.

The State Historic Preservation Office later determined the project would have no adverse effect on historic resources, although it recommended that the landscaping on Adeline Street be improved, said project manager Caleb Dardick. Four more streets were added to soften the look of the building, Dardick said.

Designed by Leddy Maytum Stacy Architects of San Francisco, the campus will also include fully accessible meeting rooms, a computer-media center, a fitness center and cafe. and a child development center.

As part of the effort to secure federal funding for the center and $1.2 million for traffic improvements at the Gilman-Interstate 80 intersection, Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates lobbied members of Congress in Washington.