PowerBar Powers Out of Berkeley
Another major Berkeley business is leaving downtown for greener pastures:
Berkeley-based PowerBar, the company that created the first energy bar two decades ago, is moving to Glendale to be closer to the U.S. subsidiary of the world’s largest food company that bought it six years ago.
The move is expected to happen by the end of the year, Switzerland-based Nestle S.A., which owns PowerBar, said in a statement…
The move to Glendale has nothing to do with a need for more office space in Berkeley, she said.
“This was purely a strategic decision for the business,” Wagar said. “The transfer of the PowerBar business to Glendale will capitalize on PowerBar’s proximity to personnel and other shared resources from Nestle Nutrition and Nestle USA, providing a steady source of ideas and innovation to support strong long-term business growth.”
PowerBar has been located in Berkeley since it was founded in 1986 by the late Brian Maxwell, a marathon runner and entrepreneur who graduated from the University of California, Berkeley…
While I appreciate the fact that there are often reasons unrelated to the city that force business to move, Berkeley has certainly not had a strong track record of retaining these types of emerging companies that have a potential to greatly contribute to Berkeley’s economy.
And, now it’s time to see why that may be. Let’s see if we can find a representative of the city to blame PowerBar for leaving:
Dona Spring, a city councilwoman whose district includes PowerBar’s Berkeley address, said she was sorry to hear that the energy bar maker was leaving…
But, she pointed out, one thing that may not be missed when PowerBar leaves is the sign the company has on top of its office building.
A lot of complaints about the sign were received from Berkeley residents who live in the hills, she said…
Well, clearly PowerBar had to go. A 10% obstruction of a Bay Area view for two dozen residents in the Berkeley Hills is plenty of reason to hold back on economic development on Shattuck. Never mind that the building itself isn’t going anywhere.
Anyone else want to check in?
“What we have here is a place where people start companies. They grow and flower,” Bates said. “At a certain point, unfortunately, we don’t have the space. A lot of times, that is our biggest problem. Some of those zoning issues we are trying to attend to.”
Eh, you might be giving too little, too late, Mayor Bates.
To me it just sounds like Councilwoman Spring was giving the silver lining in the cloud. I doubt she makes many decisions based on relatively conservative hill voters’ preferences.
Comment by Jim Fung — August 2, 2006 @ 2:28 am
Berkeley is a disaster. Given the intellectual capital of the university,it should be thriving.
The city would rather have empty run down warehouses (West Berkeley) in what could be prime waterfront real estate rather than profitable businesses generating much needed cash.
Way to go, Berkeley!
Comment by Anonymous — August 2, 2006 @ 11:35 am
Maxwell coached at Cal for years. They should have mentioned that.
That people could complain about that sign is just indicative of the infantile mentality of half of the town’s population.
Comment by anon — August 7, 2006 @ 3:54 pm
Relatedly, Clif Bar is also moving their offices out of Berkeley and into Alameda.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/08/09/CLIF.TMP
Comment by Josh M. — August 8, 2006 @ 7:08 pm
C’mon Ben, who is the one being naiive. Powerbar got bought by a Swiss multinational and they moved it’s headquarters. Par for the course. This has nothing to do with little-mayor Bates and local zoning issues. Yer inflating the importance of Berkeley to Powerbar, or Powerbar to Berkeley.
Also, if this bugs you, get used to it, its going to be happening a lot with the economic storm a-brewing. & if you don’t like it, try to organize an anti-swiss movement to stop the takeover in the interest of national security, the way certain racist, retarded, opportunist politicians did to scutter the Dubai Ports World deal, and the Chinese attempt to buy Unocal. Hee hee.
Comment by mano — August 8, 2006 @ 11:17 pm
it’s all a jewish conspiracy, nothing to do with the swedes.
Comment by Anonymous — August 9, 2006 @ 1:35 am
man, what is it with the retarded anony-bots.
Comment by mano — August 9, 2006 @ 1:53 am
hey - if the housing bubble stops in Berkeley, will that make rent go up or down? My landlord actually wants to raise my apartment neighbor’s rent $150 in her new lease (not under rent control) and cited the rising gas prices for his car as the reason. We’re wondering if equivalent places could be going down. My friend was renting a room from a girl whose parents actually bought her and her sister a house in El Cerrito, and then sold it after they graduated last year, and they made a lot of money.
BTW, China and Russia are totally going around locking in oil contracts directed towards their countries rather than the U.S.
Comment by POS — August 9, 2006 @ 8:50 pm
damn, mano, the Dubai Port reference has got to be the most inept attempt at analogy I have seen, driven, of course, by your hatred for the country you reside in. But it is nice to see that you actually agree with Bush on something.
Comment by alum03 — August 9, 2006 @ 9:00 pm
POS: yes, it should make the rents go up, at least at the start. inflation isnt going to help things either.
alum03: yes bush and i are on the “same side” of that issue, but for very different reasons. also, dumbass, i am not presenting DPW as an analogy for the powerbar situation. all i am saying is that foreigners (esp in china and europe) will increasingly be buying up (meaningful) american companies and trying to get control of hard assets in this country, so you should expect a period of time in which a lot of changes of ownership occur, and companies’ HQ get moved, and so forth. this is actually going on now, so it is really more an observation of fact than a controversial political opinion or economic forecast.
Comment by mano — August 9, 2006 @ 11:59 pm
My god, you just can’t help yourself. You just have to act so superior and smarmy that you don’t even try to check your facts anymore.
The issue with the Power Bar sign was never its height. So your patronizing comments about the 10% and the obstructed views and the building not going anywhere just show that you don’t have a clue what you’re talking about. And just a little research could have stopped you from embarrassing yourself. Go look at the building. Look closely. The sign is NOT on top of the building — it is in front of an already existing part of the building. The sign adds absolutely no height to the building.
The complaint about the sign was that they use to light it up. It was this massive ugly glare of bright yellow light and they would put it on prior to the sunset, so everyone who wanted to be east of Shattuck and watch a nice Bay sunset were screwed. There was so much outcry that Power Bar, under the pretense that it wanted to save energy, finally had to shut it off.
You know, Ben, just because you assume that Spring was talking about height doesn’t mean that is what she was talking about. You really have to stop thinking you’re so smart you can figure out what people mean without checking facts. Go on and keep ragging about the DC while you continue to make basic journalistic mistakes that a sixth grade class newspaper writer would not make.
Comment by Anon — August 10, 2006 @ 8:44 am
Anon - I live in Berkeley - I’ve seen the PowerBar sign. I know they *used to* light it up. My impression is that they have not done so for quite some time, at least not during the day. I really don’t see what you’re trying to get at.
Even if you were right - and I’ll concede that you may be half-right - it doesn’t change my original complaint: that the city government and many residents try to have their cake and eat it too. They want successful business districts, but don’t want higher vehicle traffic. They want corporate offices, but they can’t deal with tall buildings or a little light pollution. It’s this type of hypocrisy that encourages multi-million dollar businesses to form in Berkeley and immediately flee to the nearest suburb when they can afford it. It’s the same reason that ClifBar is leaving.
If you’re going to criticize a couple details in my post, you might as well engage in the dialogue surrounding it.
Mano - I have no beef with international business, but it doesn’t explain why ClifBar and other companies bail out of the city as soon as they can.
Comment by Ben N. — August 10, 2006 @ 9:30 am
I don’t know - I’ve been in support of Berkeley’s policy to retain some industrial businesses around here. We have Emeryville very close by for high intensity retail. But even if those businesses can’t make as much per square foot because they need space, do people really want to drive to eastern Contra Costa every time they need lumber, or cabinets. Also, if they replaced the west berkeley warehouses during the upswing of a business cycle, the dotcom businesses or whatever they replaced them with could easily go bankrupt, and then it would be difficult to rezone back to basic industrial businesses that support the infrastructure
Comment by it — August 10, 2006 @ 9:55 am
“it” #13-
It is interesting you bring up Emeryville when talking about supporting industrial businesses and retail, etc.
Might I remind you that until very very recently (within the past decade or two) Emeryville was solely an industrial giant, plus the low-income housing for the blue collar employees of that industry.
Emeryville went through a little reorganization of priorities by encouraging throngs of retail establishments when it realized the extra revenue from sales tax was sorely needed among the concentration of industry (whose associated taxes, I believe, do not all go to local government).
While you say Emeryville is nearby for retail, that is in the perspective of the residents, not of the city leaders who want retail dollars spent within city limits.
Comment by Eddy Crochetiere — August 10, 2006 @ 1:36 pm