Seismic Safety & Modernization Project/ Welcome Center

The Seismic Safety and Modernization (SSM) project seeks to create safer conditions for Berkeley Lab’s staff and visitors by demolishing the currently existing, seismically deficient, Cafeteria (Bldg. 54) and replacing it with a new 46,500-square-foot Welcome Center Building in the same location. The second floor of Lab’s on-site firehouse (Bldg. 48) would also be seismically upgraded as part of this project.

The Welcome Center Building would house the Campus Central Cafeteria, Health Services Department, Human Resources Department, Badging Office, and a 250-seat Conference Center. The existing Cafeteria bus stop and parking lot, a key transit area, would be reconfigured to improve efficiency and create safer conditions for pedestrian and vehicular traffic.

The project would provide campus users with a seismically compliant, user-friendly, new “social heart” to the Berkeley Lab campus; it would also serve as a safe location for “shelter-in-place” emergencies. The building’s (LEED™) Gold certification design would promote safe entry and accessibility, optimize energy conservation with respect to prevailing sun and wind patterns, and minimize excavation and site modification. The building would take maximum advantage of the extraordinary, sweeping views of the San Francisco Bay.