SF’s Newest 10-Acre Waterfont Park Coming in 2025
The San Francisco Recreation and Park Commission on Thursday approved construction firm Swinerton to build the first portion of India Basin Waterfront Park, a community-led project that will train and hire Bayview-Hunters Point residents.
The proposed plan combines the existing India Basin Shoreline Park area and 900 Innes property into one grand 10-acre waterfront park development that closes a critical gap in the San Francisco Bay Trail.
The expected completion year for the park is 2025, but projects like this rarely seem to finish on time.
Crews, which will include community members who have undergone construction training through the project’s workforce development program, will build the park’s infrastructure, piers, and other structures on a former industrial site, 900 Innes Avenue. The environmental remediation of the site was just completed.
India Basin Waterfront Park: Next Steps in Construction
- Rehabilitation of the Historic Shipwright’s Cottage, a City Landmark.
- Construction of a food pavilion, shop building, and maintenance building.
- Building two new piers, a floating dock, gangway and marine rails.
- Site improvements such as utility connections, earthwork, grading, structural fill, foundations, walls, concrete paving, stone and concrete stairs, wood decks, an overlook, a trellis, lighting, landscaping, signage, and more.
This is the second phase in the project. The first phase, led by the Bayview’s Rubecon Builders, included cleaning up decades of environmental pollution and restoring health to the shoreline, which represents a critical tidal marsh and wildlife habitat.
The India Basin Waterfront Park project is a partnership between the San Francisco Recreation and Park Department, Trust for Public Land (TPL), San Francisco Parks Alliance, the A. Philip Randolph Institute San Francisco (APRI), and the Bayview-Hunters Point community.
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It is one of the most significant park projects in San Francisco history, revitalizing and uniting a series of existing waterfront open spaces into a 10-acre seamless design. Once complete, it will provide unrivaled recreational access for the community, including 2,500 units of existing or planned public and affordable housing within 1 mile of the future park. It is also the city’s most comprehensive park investment in a historically underserved community. It is guided by an Equitable Development Plan (EDP), a first for San Francisco, with the goal of delivering a park designed by and for Bayview-Hunters Point.
Read more about the plans for India Shoreline Waterfront Park
A major strategy of the EDP is to provide vocational training to local residents and create and sustain neighborhood jobs. Swinerton has made a commitment to hire five graduates from the project’s workforce development program this year, and 10 more graduates the following year.
Recruitment and job readiness trainings are underway for community members interested in working on the project through a collaboration between Rec and Park, APRI and the San Francisco Office of Economic and Workforce Development. Specialty skills trainings for the first cohort of construction workers will begin in November with the support of the Northern California Laborer’s Union, Local 261. During the four-week program, community members will learn construction fundamentals and gain industry-recognized credentials. Recruitment and trainings for a second cohort of construction workers will begin early next year. To learn more, contact APRI.
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Construction for this phase is budgeted at $54.3 million. Public and private dollars already contributed to the overall $200 million initiative include $54 million in state funding secured by Governor Gavin Newsom, Senator Scott Wiener, Assemblymember Phil Ting, and Assemblymember David Chu; $29 million from San Francisco’s 2020 Health and Recovery Bond; and $14.3 million from two Proposition 68 grants. Philanthropic funding includes a generous $25 million donation from the John Pritzker Family Fund.
About India Basin Park Project:
The India Basin waterfront project is a partnership with the Bayview Hunters Point community, the A. Philip Randolph Institute, the Trust for Public Land, and the San Francisco Parks Alliance. The project will combine the abandoned industrial site at 900 Innes Avenue, which the City acquired in 2014, with two existing parks that border it: India Basin Shoreline Park and India Basin Shoreline Open Space, both of which would undergo significant improvements as part of the broader vision. Once complete, the new park will include gathering docks for people to socialize along the restored shoreline; an accessible walkway and stairs to connect Bayview-Hunters Point with the expanded park, gardens and natural habitats; a public plaza for fitness classes, performances, and farmers markets; a lighted bicycle and pedestrian path that will close a gap in the Bay Trail, linking the Embarcadero to Candlestick Point; and an ecological education area where visitors can observe tidal mudflat habitats and native birds through small paths, decks and viewing platforms.
At India Basin, the Recreation and Park Department endeavors to build a park that is meaningful, equitable, and essential to the health of San Francisco’s southeast communities. The clean-up and development of this site provides a tremendous opportunity to address environmental contamination and physical blight left by historic, industrial uses, while improving overall public access, recreational programming, and providing workforce development opportunities to help address social equity issues in a historically underserved neighborhood.
