The East Bay Regional Park District plans to rebuild its deteriorating Environmental Education Center, which serves as a visitor center, museum and the home of popular events including the Tilden Fungus Fair.
The 50-year-old facility, located a short walk away from the Little Farm, is falling apart due to its old age and needs to be rebuilt, said EBRPD architect Jim Devlin.
“We can’t just let the building deteriorate to the point where it’s not functional,” Devlin said.
The building needs fire protection upgrades, as it currently has no sprinkler system and has an exterior covered in wood shingles (some of which are rotting), Devlin said. Its plumbing and electrical systems have reached the end of their lives. Bats are even living on the roof and in the building siding, EBRPD staff have reported.
The woodsy Environmental Education Center was built in 1974 on the former site of Camp Wildcat Canyon, a New Deal-era camp that housed the young Civilian Conservation Corps members who built EBRPD’s trails, stone bridges, buildings restrooms and picnic areas, according to the research project The Living New Deal.
Current center isn’t fully ADA accessible
In 2017, EBRPD asked Siegel & Strain Architects to weigh the pros and cons of remodeling the old center versus building a new one.
The firm found that the center, built decades before the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, does not meet current accessibility and building codes, has “borderline insufficient” electrical capacity and feels “disconnected” with the surrounding landscape.
Wheelchair ramps were later added during the ’90s, but some remain overly steep and do not have compliant handrails. Some parts of the center, including the lobby, are too narrow for wheelchair maneuvering, the report found.
“The visitor center and the path to it do not accommodate accessible needs efficiently or effectively and will require a complete rethinking of navigation, spatial organization and adjacency of spaces to be accessible moving forward,” the report stated.
Siegel & Strain recommended that the district replace rather than repair the building. According to the firm’s 2017 estimate, a full renovation would cost approximately $11.4 million, whereas rebuilding would cost $13.6 million.
Part of the plan, said EBRPD board director Elizabeth Echols, is to make the new educational center more visible and more welcoming than the old one.
“I recognize what a special place the Tilden Nature Area is…so many people have grown up enjoying that space and I feel a real responsibility to make sure that this new facility is what we hope it to be,” said Echols, whose ward encompasses Tilden Park and who spent some of her childhood in the center as a Tilden Nature Area Junior Ranger.
A survey conducted by EBRPD found that indeed, many park-goers aren’t aware that the Tilden Environmental Education Center is open to the public. The results were unsurprising given that visitors to the Little Farm, among Tilden’s most popular attractions, only see a blank wall when they look in the direction of the center. EBRPD plans to reorient the new center so that it can be easily seen from both the parking lot and the popular petting zoo.
The district said it does not yet have a current estimate for the cost of the entire project, including construction, and declined to share a timeline for construction until after the preferred design is chosen.
So far, the project has only been funded through the end of the initial design phase stage, estimated to cost around $1.5 million, EBRPD said. The bulk of that sum comes from Measure WW, passed by voters in Alameda and Contra Costa counties in 2008; around $100,000 comes from funds set aside for Tilden Park improvements from Measure FF, passed in 2018.
Echols said she plans to work with the East Bay Regional Park Foundation to find individuals and organizations to boost funding for the project.
The new building will have improved fire protection capability, use less energy, be “fully integrated with its surrounding natural and cultural landscape” and have a design that “reflects the District’s commitment to sustainable and resilient design practices,” the district’s website says.
Other planned improvements include a path connecting the Little Farm to the center and a more efficient storm drainage system. Parts of the large irrigated grass lawn surrounding the center will be swapped out for native, fire and drought-resistant plants.
The project team consists of the architectural firm EHDD (which also designed the Exploratorium and Tunnel Tops Visitor Center in San Francisco), CMG Landscape Architecture, and AldrichPears Associates, which will design new museum exhibits.
New exhibits will highlight native plants and fungi
Initial exhibit plans include sections devoted to native plants and fungi as well as the watershed, with a special focus on the nearby Wildcat Creek’s impact on local ecosystems. There will be a “quiet contemplation” area intended to help foster the connection between the indoors and outdoors.
Some exhibits in the current center, including the wooden wildcat — a popular photo opportunity — and a historic topographical model of the East Bay parklands, will be included in the new space, Devlin said. Most of the existing exhibits will be moved into storage.
The district plans to work with local Indigenous people and groups throughout the design process, officials have said at community meetings.
Community members can weigh in on building, landscape design options
The project team has held two community meetings so far and plans to unveil its “preferred design” choice at a third, which will be held on Zoom at 6:30 p.m. on April 10, 2024. Before then, those interested in weighing in can share feedback on an online form.
The first option, titled “Eddy,” has a large, central public space at its entry. Benefits include separating the restrooms, classroom and auditorium from the rest of the exhibit, and the flexibility of having a generously sized central space. Staff noted that the primary downside is that the reception hall would be nestled further back in the exhibit space.
The next, titled “Branch,” is similar to the first, but adds three “branches” to make way for distinct exhibit areas with fine-tuned outdoor connections. For instance, the “Forest and Meadow” exhibit would have a good view of the meadow, and the “Watershed” exhibit would be angled for a great view of Wildcat Creek. Exhibit areas, however, would be less flexible, and may not accommodate some large-scale exhibits.
The third scheme, titled “Cluster,” would include a large, contiguous open space with three subzones. It’s the most flexible option, as exhibits of all scales would be able to fit. But, according to EHDD, it may be tricky to separate the exhibit zones from the entrance and classrooms, and the large area could end up picking up a lot of noise during events.
CMG, the landscape architecture firm, has designed three accompanying landscape plans. The landscape options can be mixed and matched with any of the three building design options.
Landscape design A, depicted with the “Eddy” building option, adds a new pedestrian bridge over Wildcat Creek connecting the Environmental Education Center to the Little Farm, so that pedestrians won’t have to walk down the road then back up to the center. A separate feasibility study would have to be conducted before a bridge — described in the presentation deck as “the most complicated from a construction and regulatory standpoint” — can be built.
Design B, shown with “Branch,” would add a boardwalk or pathway, intended as a shared gathering space for visitors to both the Little Farm and Environmental Education Center. It’s the most streamlined and sustainable design and uses the least amount of paving, according to CMG.
Design C, shown with “Cluster,” would result in the least amount of change, only rebuilding sections of the roundabout and walking route to meet ADA code. However, it would not fix the existing confusion around site access, CMG said. New paving types would be used to emphasize the pedestrian route to the new center.
