Conceptual rendering of the Bancroft-Fulton Student Housing project, as viewed from the corner of Fulton Street and Durant Avenue. Credit: Courtesy of UC Berkeley

UC Berkeley is set to break ground within the next few weeks on a 23-story dorm that would be one of the tallest buildings in Berkeley.

Aimed primarily at freshmen, the 1,625-bed Bancroft-Fulton Student Housing will contain a fitness center, music rooms, outdoor terraces and a 500-seat dining hall. It’s part of a push by UC Berkeley to provide more on-campus housing as the university’s population continues to grow, with a record 46,151 students enrolled this year.

“Providing housing for incoming freshmen, providing social and community spaces within the building, increasing our dining capacity at this location and adding a significant number of beds to UC’s housing portfolio are the real objectives here,” said Lindsay Facchini, UC Berkeley’s director of housing development. Construction is scheduled to begin either the last week of January or the first week of February, Facchini said.

Scheduled to be completed in 2028, the new dorm will rise 283 feet from the corner of Bancroft Avenue and Fulton Street, second in height only to Berkeley’s iconic 307-foot Campanile. The city has also approved several other 20-plus-story housing towers, including a 312-foot behemoth at the corner of Shattuck and University, but those have yet to break ground, making it unlikely they’d be completed before the student housing.

The dorm will contain a mix of singles, doubles and triples, Facchini said. She said they will rent at rates comparable to those at similar UC Berkeley dorms, which currently range from about $1,500 to about $2,200 per month, depending on room type and location, plus a mandatory $6,500-per-year meal plan.

Aerial conceptual rendering of the Bancroft-Fulton Student Housing project. Credit: Courtesy of UC Berkeley

Finding housing has long been a major challenge for UC Berkeley students attempting to navigate one of the nation’s priciest housing markets. The university currently only guarantees on-campus housing to undergraduates for their first year, but plans to extend that promise to two years by 2027. 

A separate dorm for 1,100 undergraduates is currently under construction on the site of the historic People’s Park on Telegraph Ave. That development will also contain supportive housing for previously unhoused people, part of an agreement reached with the city of Berkeley after community outrage over the university’s plans to build on the park, an emblem of the city’s progressive history and former site of both political protests and homeless encampments.

The university’s recent building spree also included Anchor House, a downtown building combining apartments for transfer students with facilities for commuters, and the xučyun ruwway graduate student housing in Albany — both completed in 2024.

Once the university has finished both the People’s Park dorm – named Judith E. Heumann House after the noted disability rights advocate – and the Bancroft-Fulton project, it will likely turn its attention to housing for upperclassmen, Facchini said, though no specific projects have been announced.

The Bancroft-Fulton dorm replaces an office building and adjacent parking lot. The university is currently building a parking structure down the block from the new dorm, Facchini said.

Also this month, the university announced a deal with Barnes & Noble to take over its campus stores, including the Cal Student Store and satellite stores at Anchor House and Cal Memorial Stadium, with the Cal Student Store scheduled to be remodeled over the summer break. 

Berkeleyside partners with the nonprofit newsroom Open Campus on higher education coverage.

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