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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Grand Opening!!!11/19/04 After a year and a half of struggle to gain an operating permit from the City of Berkeley, Spud's Pizza finally opened, much to the delight of its surrounding community. Spud's new customers greeted the Grand Opening with joy, expressing uniformly their satisfaction with the food and the beauty of the surroundings. 9/28/04 It appears that our building plans have finally been accepted and by redesigning our doors to open outwards for fire safety, we will cross our last hurdle to opening. Somewhat ambitiously, I have declared that we will be open on Oct 18th and with God and the City of Berkeley willing, it will happen. Wish us good luck!!! 6/29/04 Good News! We have received the seismic report of the South Berkeley Bank Building and it turned out that the building is safe!!! John Galen Howard, the Supervising Architect of the University of California was the lead architect on our building. I guess, even in 1906, safety was paramount for Mr. Howard, said Andrew Beretvas, Spud's owner. I have handed in six new sets of drawings, plans and structural engineering reports to the City's Permit Center today, hopefully satisfying all their requirements for us to get a building permit. We should know about our permit prior to July 14 and if all is well, we can schedule the building inspector to come and inspect our plumbing work by mid-July. From that point on, in another month and a half Spud's will be a reality!!! "Look for us opening around Labor Day", Andrew added. 6/11/04 "It amazes me that even at this late stage of opening the restaurant, things can prop up that could still 'kibosh' the whole deal!!!" Thus exclaimed Andrew Beretvas, upon hearing of the latest requirements that the City of Berkeley might impose on him, as a prerequisite to opening the restaurant. It appears that in the City's Building Permit Center, the "Change of Use" process (creating a restaurant in a space that was previously 'retail') triggers the requirement for a seismic evaluation of the building. Andrew hopes that the Landmark Status Application for the South Berkeley Bank Building that he dug out from the files of the Berkeley Heritage Society will prove his claim that the building was made of reinforced concrete and satisfies current building codes. "A seismic retrofit would cost in excess of $300,000 and there is no way that I could raise that money" Andrew explained. "This building was built for a Bank, designed to withstand earthquake and fire, heck it even survived the 1906 and 1989 Earthquakes and those were pretty tough ones" Andrew added. 6/7/04 -- Berkeley, California In a meeting today, the City of Berkeley's Loan Administration Board approved Spud Pizza's application for federal redevelopment funds. "With the City's loan, we will be able to finally start and complete the plumbing, electrical and hood construction work that is required to get Spud's open", said Andrew Beretvas, Spud's CEO. "Provided that things go fairly smoothly from here on out, we hope to be open by August 1st. We are starting plumbing on Thursday, which we hope to complete within two weeks." Andrew added. 5/28/04 -- Berkeley, California More than a year has passed since Andrew Beretvas, President of Spud's Pizza, first set eyes on its new proposed location in Berkeley. When asked why opening the restaurant has taken so long, Andrew just shrugs stoically and replies "...I had no idea that starting a business in Berkeley would be so difficult. I just hope that when we finally open, we will be well received by the community surrounding us...". Despite the fact that there has been strong support for the restaurant in South Berkeley's neighboring community, Andrew had to jump through numerous hoops with the City of Berkeley, in order to gain permission to open his restaurant. Unfortunately, the process apparently is still not complete and approval has still not been granted. "Dealing with the City's Permit Center has been a nightmare" Andrew explained. "Though we complied with all the City's requirements, it took over six months for Berkeley's Permit Center to schedule our zoning request for review by the Zoning Adjustment Board". When Spud's application was finally heard, it received unanimous approval, with a lot of favorable comments from members of the Zoning Board, acknowledging Andrew for his willingness to invest in an area that is known for high crime. "Our most major difficulty centered on the City's archaic zoning laws that mandate that we have to provide 12 parking places for the use of our staff and patrons prior to getting a use permit." Andrew added. "Even though the Mayor's Task Force has recommended that this parking requirement be abolished and despite a commitment from the City Manager's Office that the law will be changed within a year, we were told that our permit is not possible without the provision of these spaces" Andrew elaborated. "The building that houses Spud's is 98 years old and does not have a parking lot. It was built out to the property lines 98 years ago. In order to provide the required off-street parking, we agreed with a church around the corner to share their parking lot. However, when this agreement reached the City Attorney's office, they deemed it unacceptable because the zoning laws only allowed a business to share parking with a non-profit, but not the other way around." A two month delay then ensued while the law was changed to allow a non-profit to share its parking lot with a business. The new law has been dubbed "Spud's Law" and it is now in Berkeley's Municipal Code. Andrew optimistically thought that it was going to be clear sailing from there, however the good news that Spud's finally received its zoning approval at the end of January was short-lived. Due to the uncertainty surrounding Spud's zoning permit, Spud's landlord did not feel secure in investing in a business that could have its zoning permit terminated if the parking arrangement fell through and he pulled out of the commitment to help finance the restaurant, which left Andrew $150,000 short of development funds. Not known for one who easily throws in the towel, Andrew immediately started looking for replacement capital and discovered that Berkeley's Office of Economic Development has funds available for redevelopment in South Berkeley. Andrew applied for a loan at the beginning of February and was told that if approval is granted, the loan could be made within two months. Following this, Andrew gained a new commitment from his landlord to complete the financing package, provided that the City loan was approved. The two months stretched into three, then four, then finally, albeit reluctantly, Berkeley's Office of Economic Development decided to recommend the loan to its Loan Advisory Board and scheduled it for a hearing on June 7th. Hopefully the Loan Advisory Board will find this a valuable project to fund and Andrew will be able to resume construction in June, 13 months after first applying to the Zoning Board for a permit. In the interim, despite the uncertainty, Andrew pursued his building plans through the Permit Center's Building Department. You can probably guess the next sorry chapter of this saga.... Andrew has just received the rejection of his second set of plans from the Building Department. At issue is the number of bathrooms provided in the restaurant and also the seismic status of the building that houses Spud's. Even though The Vault, the other restaurant in Spud's block, has the same seating capacity as Spud's and has only one restroom, Spud's is required to provide four restrooms, due to new building codes that have been instituted since The Vault was built in 1991. Spud's has three restrooms and cannot provide an additional one without completely redesigning its premises. Whether Spud's can get a waiver of the additional restroom, is questionable at this time. The other issue at this point is the seismic evaluation and possibly a required upgrade of the building housing Spud's. Despite the fact that the building was originally designed to house a bank and built to withstand earthquake, it might need an expensive seismic evaluation and possible upgrades done due to the "Change of Use" that the development of the restaurant from retail space entails. After all the struggles to this stage to get the restaurant open, this final problem might end up kaboshing the deal, if seismic retrofits are required. "That could cost as much as $300,000, or more and nobody in their right mind would spend that much money on upgrading a 100 year old building", said Andrew mournfully. "The law is the law and if Andrew wants to establish a restaurant in Berkeley, he must comply with the law" quoted a representative of the Permit Center. It takes three to four weeks for the Permit Center to finish reviewing a new set of plans, thus Andrew will not know whether he can proceed with building, until approximately Independence Day. Wish him luck and stay tuned to further news as they unfold...
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