Berkeley lab's contract loss threatens Richmond expansion

Robert Birgeneau, the Chancellor of UC Berkeley, spoke in front of an artist's rendering of what the new laboratory might look like. A UC Richmond field station was chosen as the second campus of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Monday January 23, 2012. less Robert Birgeneau, the Chancellor of UC Berkeley, spoke in front of an artist's rendering of what the new laboratory might look like. A UC Richmond field station was chosen as the second campus of the Lawrence ... more Photo: Brant Ward, The Chronicle Photo: Brant Ward, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 4 Caption Close Berkeley lab's contract loss threatens Richmond expansion 1 / 4 Back to Gallery

After years of planning, the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has just lost out on a highly coveted, $1.5 billion contract to build the world's most sophisticated super X-ray microscope - and that could spell trouble for the lab's planned expansion to a second campus in Richmond.

Here's the story.

The University of California-managed lab was so confident of winning the laser contract from the feds that it set aside a large chunk of its 200-acre campus in the Berkeley hills to accommodate it.

But then a July 25 report by a federal Department of Energy scientific advisory committee concluded that the Berkeley lab did not meet the criteria needed for building the new laser.

Instead, based on the needs identified by the committee, the Advanced Light Source mega-microscope appears headed to Stanford.

As a result, the Department of Energy, which supplies much of the lab's budget, says the lab should now have plenty of space freed up at its hills campus above UC Berkeley - thus eliminating the need to expand to Richmond, at least for now.

This comes after sequestration cuts put the brakes on $130 million in funding for the Richmond campus' first development, a biosciences complex that was scheduled to break ground as early as 2016.

And while UC remains committed to building a Richmond campus, "uncertain funding is prohibiting us from building anything else at the moment, regardless of location," said Jon Weiner, spokesman for the lab.

"And until we have future funding secured, we're not prepared to talk about 'what ifs,' " Weiner said.

Nonetheless, UC Berkeley, which is also involved in the expansion effort in Richmond, has hired a development manager to come up with a financing strategy for the Richmond site that it sees as the East Bay's biosciences version of Silicon Valley. The university envisions it as eventually occupying 5.2 million square feet on 100 acres - a third the size of San Francisco's Mission Bay project, but with more developed space.

Richmond City Manager Bill Lindsay said that despite the setbacks, he's hopeful that the lab campus will be built in his city, which could badly use the jobs.

Meanwhile, down on the Farm, officials at the Stanford's SLAC National Linear Accelerator are hoping to turn the Berkeley lab's loss into their gain.

Uwe Bergmann, interim director for the Stanford lab's Advanced Light Sources, says the university and the feds are talking about building the microscope at Stanford. But he adds, "It's not a done deal."

By the way, it may be a coincidence, but recently departed Energy Secretary Steven Chu - who had previously headed the Lawrence Berkeley lab - is now a physics professor at Stanford.

On the rail: A top legislative Republican fired off a letter to Gov. Jerry Brown on Friday, urging him to call the Legislature back into special session to try to force BART workers to honor a "no strike" clause in their last contract.

The letter from Senate Republican leader Bob Huff, R-Diamond Bar (Los Angeles County), came just a day after he introduced SB423, a bill intended to keep BART workers from striking for a second time this year if the governor's current 60-day cooling off doesn't produce a new contract.

"We wanted something in play should the governor want to introduce it," said Huff spokesman Peter DeMarco.

Union reps haven't seen the bill and questioned whether it could be enforced. Their last contract did bar them from striking, but they note that the pact expired June 30.

As for Brown's office, they weren't saying much - but they did steer us to the governor's remarks Friday that BART and its unions "haven't seemed to be meeting, and they'd better get going because time is running out."

Indeed. The time runs out at 11:59 p.m. Oct. 10.

Sign of the times: San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee's celebration of the construction of a 75-unit affordable housing project at Broadway and Sansome Street ended on a sour note.

Just as the mayor was leaving Thursday, the owner of a frame shop next to the construction site bolted out her front door and chewed him out for parking without paying the meter.

Heidi Knodle, owner of Cadre frame shop at 860 Sansome, was already steamed that the building project had temporarily eliminated her driveway and that workers regularly double-parked in front of her store.

But the real capper came when she herself double-parked long enough to unload business supplies - and was slapped with a $95 parking ticket.

"The mayor can't even put quarters in the meter ... and yet I get ticketed for pulling up in front of my business to unload," Knodle said.

Apparently the mayor's people were paying attention. Within hours, they had dispatched the Job Squad to try to smooth over any problems Knodle might have.

And how did things work out?

"This morning," Knodle groused Friday, "we had one of their concrete mixing trucks out there for 2 1/2 hours - and they weren't even working."

This article has been updated since it appeared in print editions.