North Berkeley BART Transit-Oriented Development Plan

This new transit-oriented development (TOD) aims to prioritize people over parking by reconnecting residents with the surrounding neighborhood and the local BART station. The high-density, mixed-income plan addresses a four-block site—the former BART surface parking lot—bounded by Sacramento, Virginia, Delaware, and Acton Streets in North Berkeley.

Developed with extensive community input, the plan establishes a “Distinctly Berkeley” identity through responsive massing, materials, art, and spaces designed for rest, social interaction, and personal expression.

The Plan includes 739 new homes across 13 diverse buildings, centered on a park-style landscaped green space that reconnects the Ohlone Greenway, a 4.5-mile urban bicycle and pedestrian pathway and adds more than 50,000sf of public open space. Fully half of the proposed homes are affordable homes, with permanently supportive homes for formerly unhoused families planned by Insight Housing. The proposed site concept also includes a childcare center, neighborhood-serving retail space, and a bicycle station. 

The collaborative development team includes East Bay Asian Local Development Corporation (EBALDC), BRIDGE Housing, AvalonBay Communities, and Insight Housing. 

DBA is the lead architect and Master Planner guiding a design team that includes landscape architect EinwillerKuehl as the Public Realm Master Planner and Yes Duffy Architects as Associate Architect. DBA led this team and this project through a comprehensive public community engagement process to achieve a final plan. 

“An inspiring, human-centered design. The jury applauds the reuse of the transit structure. At the same time, the project creates a sense of place—a neighborhood which is engaged—through a wonderfully expressive design that reconciles the Transit Oriented program with the existing surroundings in a way that not only receives the BART users but also establishes a strong connective corridor to the neighborhoods and Ohlone Greenway. It demonstrates a robust community engagement process and use of an accelerated planning model that sounds novel and innovative.”  —AIA California Urban Design Awards jury