Landmark Bancroft Hotel by UC Berkeley could become apartments

A historic hotel across the street from the University of California — Berkeley that’s popular with student families may be converted into more than 100 homes.

The owner of the Bancroft Hotel aims to turn the 22-room establishment and its parking lot at 2680 Bancroft Way into 115 apartments, the San Francisco Business Times reported.

Rhoades Planning Group, on behalf of hotel owner Daryl Ross, has filed preliminary plans to transform the hotel into 22 group living units that share kitchens or bathrooms, plus 15 residential units. 

The Berkeley-based consultant has also filed plans to redevelop the hotel’s quarter-acre parking lot into an eight-story, 78-unit apartment building.

Both projects on the south side of the campus near College Avenue would employ the state density bonus law for faster approval in exchange for some affordable housing. 

Plans call for the hotel conversion to retain and restore the Bancroft Hotel facade with “as light a touch as possible,” Mark Rhoades, founder of Rhoades Planning Group, told the Business Times.

Ross is looking to convert the building because of the economic toll on Berkeley’s hospitality industry during the pandemic, Rhoades said. There’s no timeline for the hotel’s redevelopment.

Rates for rooms appear to range from $159 to $230 per night, according to a review of the hotel’s website.

The Craftsman-style hotel, designed by Walter Steilberg and built in 1928 for the College Women’s Club, is a Berkeley landmark and on the National Register of Historic Places. It later served as a rooming house and a sorority. It was restored and given a seismic renovation, according to its website.  It reopened as the Bancroft Hotel in 1993.

Ross’ family bought the building in the late 1970s, a few years before Ross graduated from UC Berkeley. Ross now owns or operates nearly a half dozen cafes on or near the UC Berkeley campus, including Caffé Strada next door to the hotel. 

“The Bancroft Hotel was originally built as a campus-serving residential project,” Rhoades said. “Our thinking is – if you’re going to do something different, return it back to its original use as a residential building.”Spurred by the state density bonus law, Berkeley is undergoing a residential transformation, with six proposed highrises in Downtown.

— Dana Bartholomew