My personal opinion is that the move in times are to evenly distribute the number of cars coming in and out. Since you won’t have a car, If you’re perfectly willing to lug your stuff the 4 blocks from Garden Village to Blackwell, they possibly/probably will let you through at 10am or whenever you get there. You can check on Monday afternoon (My guess is that the front desk opens for business around 2pm) at Blackwell to see if that arrangement can be made. Or perhaps the Blackwell front desk can let you put your stuff off to the side for a few hours if they won’t let you check in.
Otherwise there’s a Bounce Luggage storage that you can temporarily store your luggage (probably $5-6 a day) but that’s right at the BART station. Gee, having a bunch of stuff can be a major anchor.
I don’t know if any blackwell parents are interested, but I couldn’t find any dimensions for the rooms, so I took measurements.
space with the bed against the alcove wall, 13"x36"
fridge alcove 21"wide x 36" deep x9’ high
window desk alcove 53 x 28 desk 48 (smaller than door desk alcove
height to window 30.5" space next to window by desk alcove 16" wide
behind the bed with drawers pulled flush 24" wide by 19" high measured from frame to back of drawers
drawers 18" deep
closet 48 wide, 24 deep, 32" from top of shelf to fire sprinkler
door desk 54.5 by 28
bed frame post to post inside 75"
drawers each 29.5 wide
with drawers together, 12 inches empty
@Jpal, that’s good to know! Was the move-in pretty smooth? I get to help with the move-in again at Blackwell for my kid on Sunday, hopefully with a lot less chaos than today.
it actually seemed that Blackwell was easier than the others I saw. It may be because of the lower number of students, or better organization. Hard to say, but no one was waiting around like at the other one up Durant on the next block
My son checked into Blackwell yesterday. He says there is no A/C in the room. There is a thermostat though. When checked with RA they says there is A/C and thermostat will not function. Wondering anyone know more info this through their kids. Is it that the thermostat is not set properly?
There is no AC, not at Blackwell or any other dorms. There are overhead ceiling fans though in each room at Blackwell. The thermostat if I am not mistaken only comes into play for heat.
Now all of this is based on last year. I guess I myself will find out on Sunday if anything changed lol.
@ProfessorPlum168, you are correct that they didn’t really care about check-in time. We inquired the day before main move-in at Blackwell front desk. The lady said “I don’t check the assigned time and I don’t think anyone else does either.” On move-n day, we overheard some kids saying they had been encouraged to show up early (by whom? --seemed like maybe the powers that be). We just loaded up the Berkeley Rover flatbed cart with about 300 pounds of books, a computer and some clothes, muscled it up the street and checked in with zero hassle.
The dorm is just a year old, with a minimalist design. There is a great workout room. Study and social spaces look nice. Plenty of washers and dryers that only work with credit cards. Each student in the double rooms has a bed with four underbed drawers, a closet, a desk and a chair. There is a combo fridge/microwave between the two beds. The biggest flaw we could see in the design of the rooms is the lack of bookshelves above the desks. For college students! Hello? Unsure about A/C in the rooms. It did get pretty warm that day.
He seems happy with his setup and especially the location, one block from campus.
@PadreDeTres, that’s great that you were able to not have to figure out how to kill 5 hours. Where the check in time does matter is with the police that handles the flow of traffic into the drop off spots. We actually got there 25 minutes early this morning, but they let us through to drop off our stuff. Things went really smooth today especially since we had our own platform cart. No line at all for check-in and my kid’s roommate seems like a nice guy. The only thing that went wrong is that for some reason my kid didn’t pack any socks or a towel, but I’ll let him deal with that himself.
Yeah as far as having that wasted space on top of the desk cove, you could put a lightweight shelf there. Not sure what the regulations are though. Many people turn their desk to be parallel with the window/door, so having a shelf there might make sense since it would be reachable.