The 161-acre Golden Gate Fields property straddles the Berkeley-Albany border. Credit: Ximena Natera, Berkeleyside/Catchlight
The plan to turn Golden Gate Fields into a new waterfront park could get a big boost from Sacramento.
The revised budget proposal Gov. Gavin Newsom rolled out Thursday calls for giving the effort $125 million in funding raised by Proposition 4, a parks and climate resilience bond voters approved two years ago.
That would cover most of the $175 million purchase price that the Stronach Group, the track’s Canadian owner, agreed to in a deal announced earlier this year with the nonprofit Trust for Public Land, which plans to buy the site and transfer it to the East Bay Regional Park District. The district has committed another $20 million toward the purchase, while the trust said it also plans to raise money for it through private philanthropy.
“This significant investment demonstrates California’s commitment to expanding public access to the San Francisco Bay, advancing climate resilience, and ensuring future generations can connect with the outdoors along one of the region’s most important shorelines,” said Guillermo Rodriguez, the trust’s California state director, in a statement Thursday.
The allocation was first reported by the San Francisco Chronicle.
The purchase agreement gives the trust, which is based in San Francisco and has acquired more than 5 million acres of land nationwide for parks and other public uses, until the end of the year to come up with the money.
Home for more than eight decades to horse racing, Golden Gate Fields has been quiet since the track closed in 2024.
Park district officials say they plan to undertake a public process to decide precisely what they’ll do with the 161-acre site that straddles the Berkeley-Albany border and boasts a panoramic view of San Francisco, the Golden Gate and Mount Tamalpais. Rodriguez said a study of the site identified “significant opportunities to enhance wildlife habitat and wetland restoration while improving public access and recreation amenities.”
The envisioned new park, which officials hope to open to the public in five years, would join a string of public lands along the eastern bay shoreline that stretches from Richmond to the foot of the Bay Bridge in Oakland.
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