News
Check Out This Bronzed Beauty
June 20, 2012
| All together now: It’s not only a Beatles lyrics but also a 12-by-7 foot bronze sculpture that was installed yesterday at the EmeryStation Greenway Building in Emeryville, marking the grand opening of the 99k SF facility. (It’s a good thing the Fab Four didn’t sing about The Eve of Destruction.) |
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| It's the newest building at Wareham Development’s 1.7M SF EmeryStation, part of its 2.5M SF Emeryville/West Berkeley research cluster. The sculpture depicts four stylized, intertwined figures. New York sculptor Fred Gelb told us yesterday that the piece has a monumental feel but also a tremendous fluid motion; the figures are supporting one another with their arms interlocked, creating a circle of life: “What I’m saying is if there’s anything we need to do in society today, it’s to do things all together now—all of us.” |
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| Wareham president Rich Robbins and Fred relax in front of All Together Now. By providing state-of-the-art lab space for scientists and innovators to work together, Rich hopes “life saving, life improving, and life prolonging medical breakthroughs” will be made here. Designed by DGA Architects and built by DPR, EmeryStation Greenway is the first privately funded lab facility built in the Bay Area since Wareham completed EmeryStation East in 2007. Cornish & Carey’s Bill Nork, Jonathan Tomasco, and Randy Scott are handling leasing. A 1,200 SF ground-floor space has been leased to a restaurant. |
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| Fred himself recently battled an aggressive form of prostate cancer. He might sound like a ’60s hippie with references to John Lennon, Dylan, and Neil Young, but he took a more conventional route early in his career, as owner of a successful outerwear manufacturer. Getting sick compelled him to reconnect with his passion for sculpting, which Fred credits as much as his medical treatment and his family support for having no sign of cancer for 4.5 years now. The new building is at the entrance to the Emeryville Greenway (a pedestrian/bike path through the city linking to Berkeley’s system of bikeways), which Wareham has been developing in partnership with the City of Emeryville. |
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| Designed for life science, nano-science, and green tech companies, EmeryStation contains 1.5M SF (98% occupied). The last remaining project to be built on the campus is EmeryStation West Transit Center, a 205k SF office/lab building that will accommodate Amtrak trains, buses, and EmeryGoRound shuttles. Wareham hopes to move forward on the fully entitled and approved project later this year or early next. |
