Following new green spaces in India Basin, Dogpatch and Yerba Buena Island, San Francisco will soon get another brand-new park, this one directly across from the Warriors’ Chase Center arena. After some weather-related construction delays, Bayfront Park in Mission Bay is set to open later this year, and its amenities are already becoming visible to passersby—especially from Chase Center.
The Port of San Francisco, the agency overseeing the project, confirmed that the 5.4-acre Bayfront Park should be completed this summer and open to the public sometime in the fall, a little over two years after its August 2022 groundbreaking.
Situated on the eastern side of Terry A. Francois Boulevard between Warriors Way and 16th Street, the still-fenced-off Bayfront Park contains tables and benches, extensive “bioretention gardens” intended to manage stormwater runoff and a sloping, grassy hill.
Several large, vertically oriented pieces of reclaimed steel are also clearly visible, a nod to the shoreline’s industrial past.
According to Eric Young, a spokesperson for the Port, these are sections of the Bay Bridge’s original eastern span, which was dismantled more than a decade ago. “The site also includes salvaged anchors from the Port of San Francisco’s ‘boneyard,’ as well as new plaza areas for barbecues and picnics,” he said.
The discovery—and eventual removal—of contaminated soil caused some delays in Bayfront Park’s unveiling, as first reported by the Potrero View, as did saturated ground from last winter’s rains.
San Francisco has been on a tear with opening new parks lately, particularly in the Mission Bay and Dogpatch neighborhoods along the city’s Central Waterfront, which have welcomed thousands of new residents as well as prominent corporate offices like the new headquarters of financial-services giant Visa. In late April, a cavalcade of dignitaries led by Mayor London Breed cut the ribbon for nearby China Basin Park, a complicated project some 15 years in the making. With its sloping lawn, bike-and-pedestrian path and even a proper sandy beach, it faces Oracle Park from across Mission Bay.
These are only the most recent links in a network of green spaces stretching to the city’s Bayview District. Only a few blocks south of Bayfront Park is the slightly larger Crane Cove Park, which opened in 2020 as a place for kayakers and picnickers.
A few miles away, India Basin Waterfront Park is set to open in phases through 2026, turning one of the last undeveloped stretches of shoreline into a publicly accessible area that closes a gap in the larger San Francisco Bay Trail that encircles nearly the entire region.