We, the Telegraph Business Improvement District, or TBID, have long believed that Telegraph Avenue should be the primary shopping and dining destination for Cal students, faculty and staff. For most of them, it is the closest commercial district, and students do support the district in significant numbers. We also realize that many others avoid it, and we are working to address this in a variety of ways.
It is an elementary axiom that businesses need to meet the desires and needs of their customers, or they will fail. The same goes for commercial districts as well. The Telegraph district next to campus has both some significant advantages and challenges for commercial success.
First, Telegraph is both a student district and a neighborhood district. At the north end of Telegraph, the businesses appeal more to students. As one ventures farther south, businesses depend more on the support of nearby residents from principally the Willard and LeConte neighborhoods. Of course, Telegraph draws from all over the Bay Area and world, but the district would never succeed without local support. So, venturing south, one sees more full-service restaurants and businesses that appeal to a wider range of ages.
Districts need to be flexible and change with broader social, technological and economic trends. Consequently, the TBID champions conversion of Telegraph into a 24-hour district with the hopes of it developing a vibrant night time economy. This can be done and has been done in many places. We recognize that students, younger adults and foreign residents are not tied to traditional schedules. Connecting with friends and colleagues is now a 24-hour activity and people may be “chatting” with their closest friends many time zones away. Therefore, we want to see more businesses stay open later, accommodating students and others at all hours. This effort has met with mixed reactions at the city, but we intend to persist and are confident that we will eventually succeed.
We recognize that for Telegraph to have a vibrant nighttime economy, it must feel safe. That is why we have championed the role of host ambassadors who patrol Telegraph on foot Wednesday through Saturday evenings and why we advocated for the new increased police foot and bicycle patrols — currently every day from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. We are developing plans to make it possible for the city to apply for pedestrian lighting grants and are also working with UC Berkeley staff on decorative light garlands that we hope to unveil in a few months.
Safety also includes addressing problematic behavior. A poll taken by the UC Berkeley Graduate Assembly almost two years ago of approximately 1,800 students showed that about one-third of all students avoid Telegraph and the downtown because of people who sit on the sidewalks and harass passers-by. Critics have assailed the methodology of the survey, but they cannot criticize the sheer enormous size of the sample, which in itself overcomes a huge amount of any possible “methodological error.” Therefore, by any measure, over 10,000 students avoid Telegraph and the downtown. It comes as no surprise, then, that the TBID strongly endorses Measure S, the proposed Berkeley Civil Sidewalks Ordinance.
The real oddity is that last year the ASUC Senate voted overwhelmingly to oppose any sit-lie ordinance. This was before any proposed law was even written and was in spite of the fact that such a measure would directly address the fears of 10,000 or more students. It might have been the most anti-student resolution in ASUC history — one that could negatively impact thousands. We hope that the new ASUC Senate will re-examine this issue and change their position. In any case, the TBID will, in the face of mostly exaggerated and inaccurate opposition, persevere in its support for this ordinance because it directly addresses threatening behavior and supports both students and merchants.
Perhaps nothing symbolizes the changes in the economy more than what we all see on Thursday evenings with the Off the Grid food trucks. Food trucks are a hot, growing phenomenon all over the country and they are now here on Telegraph every Thursday evening. Hundreds of people come to socialize on the sidewalks and street while enjoying a tasty meal. Our challenge, which we are still working on, is how to meaningfully tie Telegraph as a destination into such a fun event. Some individual merchants have done so already. Moe’s Books has poetry readings many Thursday evenings and Caffe Mediterraneum has interesting coffee tastings in front of their café during Off the Grid.
We do realize that having the right merchant mix is essential. We welcome the recent arrival of The Melt, and before that, The Toaster Oven and Pappy’s Grill & Sports Bar. We see repeatedly that food is often the necessary pretext for socializing. TBID cleans the sidewalks daily. Host ambassadors outreach to the needy. TBID continues to work on trying to encourage more late-night businesses. Our number one challenge remains the most amorphous — to be relevant. TBID wants to welcome all students and wants Telegraph to be their home.
Roland Peterson is the executive director of the Telegraph Business Improvement District.
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Telegraph will never be safe until the directly surrounding areas are made safe as well. Even in the middle of the day, I cannot walk done telegraph alone without being accosted by some random, confrontational (presumably homeless) male. Places such as People’s Park need to be patrolled and looked after as well if we ever want to see improvement in the Telegraph and surrounding Berkeley area.
TBID is behind Measure S and has been trying to get something like Measure S passed since the early 1990′s. TBID is not looking for solutions to homelessness, they’re looking to make Telegraph look like a mall from the suburbs. Clue: Walnut Creek has plenty of commercial space available if you want to do business in a mall-like atmosphere. Cal students are smart enough to see through your words. Cal students have stood up for homeless people’s civil rights routinely.
Homeless people are not responsible for the vacant commercial spaces on Telegraph or any other part of the City of Berkeley. Homeless people are not responsible for the economic downturn being suffered by small businesses in Berkeley and most other cities in the country. The ambassadors are not trained to reach out to “the needy”, and even if they were they would find that the safety net for the needy is stretched to its limit. Call 2-1-1 and ask if there’s a shelter bed available in Berkeley. Call every day for a week. There are 600 homeless people and 110 beds available during the year, except for when the youth shelter is open and then there’s 140. The shelters in Berkeley are full every night.
Stop scapegoating homeless people for failed business strategies, for the economic downturn in the City and the country, and for Telegraph Avenue’s failure to be “relevant” to students at Cal.
Lol, and not a word about the gutter punks touring the country.
Hello!! There is more to life than shopping. That’s what makes Telegraph Avenue such a unique place. This Business District plan is based on a model being pushed by certain business interests around the US. It pretends to have the interests of certain consumer groups in mind, when in reality its intention is to create an outdoor shopping mall controlled by business and banks. Don’t fall for it. Like another commenter wrote, if students are so in favor of a sit/lie ordinance, why did they vote overwhelmingly against it? Businesses have thrived and survived on Telegraph for decades without this plan. They can do the same in the future.
We will see in November what students really think. When they can all vote.
Critics have assailed the methodology of the survey, but they cannot criticize the sheer enormous size of the sample, which in itself overcomes a huge amount of any possible “methodological error.”
Have you ever taken a statistics class? Having more people answer a flawed survey doesn’t make it less flawed.
Editor:
“Rising business keep area vibrant?” Should be “rising businesses keep…”
Oh just quit it, you don’t know what students want. Students came THROUGHOUT summer to oppose the sit-lie ordinance, not a single student spoke on July 12th in favor of the ordinance. Use the money this ordinance would WASTE to actually HELP the homeless who need help, and pay for cops to take care of the people who don’t need help. THESE ARE OUR STREETS.
Whose streets? I’ve talked to many students who consistently tell me they prefer to shop all the way over in Emeryville’s Bay Street (we’re talking students without cars going MILES to shop elsewhere than what is practically their back yard) because of spanging gutter punk types who make them not want to shop there. And this isn’t about the homeless, really, it’s about opt-out-of-society disillusioned youth who want money from people who prefer to earn it as parts of “the system”.
We all know who you are and your biases anyway when you pull that whole “whose streets? OUR STREETS!” crap. Newsflash: “you” do not comprise everyone.
Well, for one thing, Emeryville and Telegraph don’t have exactly the same kind of shopping and services. Some people – many people – prefer to go to a Barnes and Nobles than Moe’s Books, or to sample the more extensive clothing options rather than a few expensive boutiques like the American Apparel on Telegraph. Or maybe they need furniture. Anyway, there are a lot of differences besides the state of the streets.
I do concede your point that the merchants along telegraph offer far less than what is in Emeryville. Part of what’s to blame, there, is Berkeley’s history of being anti-franchise/big box. Another reason it’s hard to get good merchants is that they don’t want to come to a place where nobody feels comfortable shopping, which brings it back to hostile disillusioned youth, who everyone knows panhandle very aggressively and often belligerently.
Remember when there was a Barnes & Noble at the southwest corner of Shattuck and Durant? That one closed down, yet the one all the way in Emeryville thrives? What’s up with that?
Sure there are many other factors at play than the state of the streets, but if that factor is not taken into account as one of a few KEY factors then we’re not seeing eye to eye, I suppose.
I completely agree with the opinion that these people are not down-on-their-luck-poor-souls who would love to work if only they could. I live across the street from People’s Park and I can smell the pot – and whatever else that is that I’m smelling – from inside my apartment. These people use our natural sympathies to live off of others and if anyone has heard the rants and jeers slung at each other and the world in the middle of the night, they would get a dose of reality about that population. The majority who squat there are are not temporarily homeless and looking for work. It’s this lawless “campground” that brings the whole neighborhood down. WHY the police choose to increase patrols during certain hours and leave us to our own defenses the rest of the night is negligent and absurd. If they want to make a difference, they ought to create a permanently-manned kiosk, or even just park a car there…or circle every half-hour. ALL NIGHT.
And you know…there are reasons why animal lovers insist that people not feed pigeons – it causes them to gather and multiply and rely on those handouts, which then leads to diseased populations. Can we not care more for people?? The kind hearts who pass out breakfast burritos are only making themselves feel better while supporting the continuation of the centralization of the problem. It is a disservice to people who see a way that that lifestyle can work, and it’s a disservice to the people who live all around this neighborhood.
I have made that analogy MANY times: “please don’t feed the birds”. And yes, it is disgusting how they play off of people’s sympathies. Well, you’ve got to tell folks about measure S and how you feel and get likeminded people in your area to vote on Measure S and, in the future, Kriss Worthington. The voter turnout among activists, you see, is extraordinarily high and VERY left-leaning. To be clear, I consider myself a moderate liberal and in the VAST majority of ways not a conservative. However, I’m not what the Berkeley Daily Planet would label a “true progressive” and I don’t really care if I don’t, in their eyes, deserve that title.
I care about this city. I care about the newcomers who are turned off by this part of it, but believe that’s how everyone likes to do things. We need a healthy does of change, but it has to start with folks like you.
November, IN THE MIDST. November.
Man, I like that moniker: “in the midst”. Keep that one.
I don’t think you know what students want. I know that most student’s feelings are ignored by Berkeley and by the ASUC. Most of us just avoid Telegraph and go to school instead of dealing with the drama of the area or ASUC politics. We eat on campus, in the dorms, and on Northside. We don’t enter campus by Sproul. We enter up by College Ave. or other locations. I can’t even get anyone to go with me to Blondie’s in the evenings.
Why are you trying to link the sit-lie ordinance to a 24-hour telegraph, since the measure doesn’t apply at night (between 10pm and 7am)?
The harassment from gutter punks during the hours during which the measure would apply gives potential visitors a very negative impression of Telegraph, dissuading them from frequenting the area at any hour of the day.
But it does nothing for nighttime safety.
But it does everything for promoting a more positive perception of Telegraph.