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Friday June 23, 2006

Magnes drops one Berkeley future home for another

by joe eskenazi
staff writer

The long-touted “future home” of the Judah L. Magnes Museum on Allston Way in downtown Berkeley looks as if it will go down in history as the long-touted future home that never was.

The museum announced this week that it has signed a purchase agreement for a second, larger downtown Berkeley building which it now intends to make into its future home.

The Magnes hopes to clear escrow on the structure at 2222 Harold Way (a stone’s throw from the Berkeley Public Library and Shattuck Hotel) by November after signing the purchase agreement in late May. Neither the Magnes nor the seller, Armstrong Properties, will release the purchase price at this time.

Terry Pink Alexander, the museum’s executive director, estimates it will require a $30 million capital campaign to relocate to a revamped new structure by July of 2009. This, she estimates, is the same amount of money it would have taken to move into an Allston Way structure that is around 10,000 square feet smaller and would require significantly more work.

The museum, which, since its founding in 1962 has been housed in a converted home in a residential section of Berkeley on Russell Street, owns the Allston Way building outright. It is currently leasing that building to U.C. Berkeley’s Bancroft Library. That contract expires in 2007 with several two-month options that could carry it until 2008.

With the University of California occupying the Allston Way structure, the Magnes was unable to sell it in order to purchase the Harold Way building — and at the last minute, an anonymous donor provided the museum with an interest-free, three-year, $8 million loan.

Additionally, in the past two weeks Irving Rabin, president of the Magnes’ board, has led a lightning-fast East Bay fund-raising effort, which has amassed $7 million in pledges toward the capital campaign.

The purchase was a major directional shift for the museum, but Alexander is enamored with the structure on Harold Way, and so is her board.

“I keep using the term ‘street presence.’ You drive up and say ‘this is a building!’” she said.

“On the second floor is a spectacular, 5,500-square-foot auditorium. It’ll make the Magnes one of the premier places in the East Bay for meetings, parties, events and conferences. You could probably get 300, 400 people seated in there, and there’s a full stage.”

The structure, designated a city landmark in 1994, was constructed in 1923, when elegance seemed to be a given in city architecture. In its previous incarnations, the building housed an adult college and a secretarial school. It is currently being leased by the University of California Extension; the Magnes and U.C. Extension will begin negotiations next week over a time frame for the latter’s exiting the building.

Alexander concedes that getting everything ready by July of 2009 will be a formidable task, but she has no doubt the museum is making the right move.

In fact, she can’t help but point out that there’s a perfect spot for a gift and bookshop on the Harold Way building — it even has its own separate entrance.

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