The Cal High Performance Center (HPC) that has been blocked in court pending a full trial that will review pending and more detailed seismic data, is looking good right now.  The Althletic Department released a press release yesterday saying that the new detailed seismic data confirms that there is no active earthquake faults on the building site.

This is really no surprise, but it’s nice to get the confirmation.

The other interesting tidbit in this VERY well written press release (it both makes the case of the University well while sticking to the facts and addressing common questions) is that it looks like the date of the trial will be pushed back from earlier expectations.  It was previously thought that the trial would happen in June or July yet the press release says “late summer or fall”, which means likely September or October (at least to me).  If I had to guess, the completion of the seismic review was a key piece needed to set a trial date.  Since it wasn’t released until effectively the beginning of June, I suspect that’s the reason for the delayed trial date.  If so, that’s a blow to the Athletic Department because the completion of that report was completely under their control.

In any case, since construction wasn’t going to start until the football season was over, it doesn’t much matter whether the trial is in the summer or fall, just that it’s all done before November 10th (the last home game), with the possible exception of the tree-sitters still having trees to sit in during the season.

In the end this is very good news and likely clears the way for the construction of the HPC.  In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if some back-room dealing is occuring right now between the University and the City of Berkeley and the Panaramic Hill Association (the big players in the lawsuit) to work out a compromise that avoids the court case entirely.  Now that it looks far less likely that the City can block the construction, they need to work out a compromise that protects their interests instead of losing out on everything they want by proceeding to court and losing.