Not being as narrow minded, short-sighted and distracted as the City of Richmond (City Council), San Francisco has proceeded to implement a mixed-use development at Treasure
Island that includes housing, lodging, commercial uses, and a world-class waterfront park. Like Point Molate, Treasure Island is (shudder) one way in and one way out, a non-starter for anti-development RPA NIMBYs in Richmond.
Like Point Molate, Treasure Island was abandoned by the Navy in 1997 (actually 1995 for Point Molate). Unlike Richmond, San Francisco saw opportunity and moved ahead. Treasure
Island is now approved for 20,000 residents, 8,000 housing units, and a world-class waterfront park is scheduled to
open this summer – while the Point Molate park is nothing but a vision, tied up in litigation and other issues, and according even to its advocates, is decades away.
Not only is the park dream for Point Molate stalled out, the much-hyped native habitat is being rapidly consumed by invasive exotic species, including, French broom, Pampas grass
and eucalyptus, all of which dramatically increase fire danger.
And, the historic structures of Winehaven continue to deteriorate, some beyond recovery.
The contrast between what San Francisco did with Treasure Island and what Richmond has not done with Point Molate is staggering.
Big Treasure Island park and open space projects move ahead
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By Patrick Hoge | Examiner staff writer
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Kevin Conger, founding partner of CMG Landscape Architecture: “We can look to Treasure Island as
a model of how we design neighborhoods that are sustainable, walkable and ecologically healthy for the future.”
Craig Lee/The Examiner
While some housing has been built and more is rising on Treasure Island, there’s another major construction effort underway — the creation of a waterfront park that will be a key part
of hundreds of acres of new parklands emerging at the former U.S. Navy facility.
“It’s the project of a lifetime for any landscape architect,” said Kevin Conger, founding partner of CMG
Landscape Architecture and a leader for nearly 23 years of the effort to mold the plans for 290 acres of public
open space plans on Treasure Island and neighboring Yerba Buena Island, which has its own parks
and housing.
When completed, the public open space on Treasure Island will cover about 212 acres of the 400-acre island with neighborhood parks, urban spaces and natural settings.
“It’s a ton of open space,” said Conger, whose firm is the landscape architecture lead on the island redesign, which includes features such as plazas, streetscapes, an urban farm and
broad wildlands.
“As we celebrate Earth Day in 2025, we can look to Treasure Island as a model of how we design neighborhoods that are sustainable, walkable and ecologically healthy for the future,”
Conger said.
Currently under construction is Cityside Park — a 300-foot-wide linear park, three-fourths of a mile long, by the ferry landing with a waterfront promenade. The site affords sweeping
views of San Francisco, the Golden Gate Bridge, Mount Tamalpais and other parts of the Bay Area.
“The views are amazing, especially at night,” Conger said. “It is mind-blowing.”
The park, scheduled to open this summer, will include an amphitheater-shaped lawn with a stage for events, along with plazas, native habitats, picnic areas and a beach. It spreads out
immediately in front of the recently completed 22-story Isle
House apartment building that is now leasing units.
Plans call for the waterfront path to eventually wrap around the entire island, the north end of which is slated to be a nearly 90-acre, rustic ecological area filled with native plants.
With sea levels expected to rise, much of the northern area could become valuable intertidal wetlands, a type of habitat beneficial to the health of the bay but much of which has been
lost to human development or is threatened by future inundation, Conger said.
Together with Yerba Buena Island, where plant colonies have been painstakingly established using plant stock from the island, the overall landscaping efforts will result in a rich natural
environment, said Peter Brastow, a senior biodiversity specialist with The City’s Environment Department.
One added benefit of having so much open space is that the development has expansive stormwater-detention systems that filter runoff through native plants and soils before it goes into
the bay, Conger said.
Such systems are often crammed into tight spaces in urban settings, but on Treasure Island and on Yerba Buena Island they are large enough to provide significant wildlife habitat for
creatures such as birds and other pollinators, Conger said.
Conger said the fact that Treasure Island is getting so much open space largely has to do with California law that requires land created by bay fill to be used for public purposes.
To satisfy that requirement after the
Navy closed its installation in 1997, the state put land on nearby naturally-occurring Yerba Buena Island — a steep, rocky outcropping — into the public trust. Yerba Buena Island now
has multiple parks, including Panorama Park, Signal Point, The Rocks Dog Park and Buckeye Grove.
Meanwhile, up to 8,000 units of dense housing — similar to the Isle House apartment building — were approved on the flat expanse of human-made Treasure Island.
Proportionally, Conger said the amount of parkland is generous for Treasure Island’s anticipated population — roughly 20,000 residents — and the design master plan aims to create something
that is both a regional and tourist attraction as well as an amenity for local residents.
That sentiment was echoed by Kiah McCarley, a senior community development specialist with the Treasure
Island Development Authority, the city agency steering the development process.
“We think that this park system will be an amazing amenity not only for Treasure Island residents but for the region as whole,” McCarley said.
In addition to sports fields and picnic spots, for example, there will be bike lanes surrounding and criss-crossing the island that will not be interrupted by vehicular traffic, Conger
said.
“Eventually you’ll be able to go to all the major parks, all the major public destinations, including the school, without ever crossing a road that has cars on it,” he said.
Conger said that given Treasure Island’s flatness and scenic vistas, he hopes it will become a popular biking destination.
“Our strategy for the overall island, in terms of the vastness, was to make an open-space system that would attract a lot of people for a lot of different reasons, so people have a
lot of reasons to go back out there numerous times,” he said.
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