South Berkeley’s busiest grocery corner could soon be looking a lot taller. A developer has revised plans for a mixed-use building across from the Berkeley Bowl Marketplace, boosting the design to 11 stories with 242 apartments. The latest proposal would add ground-floor retail and rooftop amenity space while replacing several one-story buildings and a surface parking lot on this heavily trafficked Shattuck Avenue stretch.
As reported by The Daily Californian, developer NX Ventures has filed an updated application that builds on an earlier 2022 plan calling for 10 stories and 221 units. The new version adds a floor and several more homes while keeping a set-aside of 30 below-market-rate units. Nathan George told the paper that“modular construction lowers costs and speeds delivery, allowing lower rents.
Project details
The building would rise at the corner of Shattuck Avenue and Russell Street and total roughly 131,600 square feet, including about 3,700 square feet of ground-floor retail, according to SFYIMBY. The plan leans heavily toward smaller units, with roughly 219 studios, nine one-bedrooms, 13 two-bedrooms and a single three-bedroom apartment.
Residents would get two rooftop decks and a ground-level garden, along with 68 bicycle parking stalls and space for about a dozen cars. In other words, this is a project that clearly expects a lot of people to arrive on foot, by bike or via transit instead of behind the wheel.
Design and timeline
Architecture firm Stackhouse De la Peña Trachtenberg has wrapped the massing in wood-look siding, insulated panels and Juliet balconies, creating a checkerboard-style facade that the team says is meant to relate to the existing block scale. The development would start with the demolition of the current single-story structures on the site.
From there, the applicant estimates construction would take roughly 16 months from demolition through completion. The team told The Daily Californian that modular construction methods are intended to speed delivery, which they argue can help keep rents lower than a traditional build.
Affordability and approvals
The proposal includes 30 below-market-rate units, split between 22 homes for very-low-income households and eight reserved for moderate-income tenants. The developer is using California’s State Density Bonus program to request waivers from certain local standards, including open-space and setback rules, as outlined by SFYIMBY.
Whether those concessions fly is now up to Berkeley city staff and commissions, which will vet the project details during the entitlement process. The outcome will shape everything from the final building envelope to the amount of outdoor space future residents actually get.
What's next
The application still has to navigate Berkeley’s permitting and public-review gantlet before any construction starts. Project documents and upcoming hearing schedules are available on the city’s planning and permitting web pages. The timing lines up with Berkeley’s broader effort to meet state-assigned housing targets through its housing element, which sets local goals to satisfy the region’s RHNA obligations, according to the City of Berkeley.
Why it matters
At 11 stories and 242 units, this corner project would add another sizable, transit-oriented building to South Berkeley’s housing pipeline and highlight how state density incentives are reshaping what gets proposed in the first place. It is also another example of how debates over neighborhood character, building height and zoning reforms are playing out as the city tries to add housing while preserving a sense of community, a tension explored in recent coverage by KQED.
