In late September, Tee Olomua sat on a stoop watching her family play HORSE with a deflated basketball on a playground strewn with trash and dog feces. 

When asked about new plans to redevelop the former site of Candlestick Park, which neighbors her home, Olomua raised her eyebrow and then rolled her eyes.

She had been in Alice Griffith Community since it reopened in 2018, one of the first tenants to move from the dilapidated complex next-door to its shiny, new version. Olomua said over the years she’s been promised a lot of hope. Sometimes, she admits, she even believed it. 

“It’s been horrible,” she said. “Coming here, we were excited to live somewhere nice. That didn’t last.”

The only signs of Candlestick’s redevelopment for much of the past decade are 337 housing units in three buildings at Alice Griffith, which sits off Gilman Avenue across from the old stadium. Aerial photos show how the majority-Black public housing development is surrounded by dirt lots, fencing, and blocked roads — the shadow of a promised neighborhood.

After Paul McCartney closed out The Stick in 2014 in a blowout farewell to a historic piece of San Francisco lore — home field of Willie Mays, Joe Montana, and Jerry Rice — a string of leaders at developer FivePoint and city officials promised to rebuild the neglected corner of the city in a way to keep the local population of largely Black San Franciscans rooted. 

That vision came with dozens of pledges to the community: for new jobs, parks, infrastructure, and affordable housing. 

Taking the tally a decade later, the southeastern corner of the city is still a stadium-sized ditch. And, among many locals, cautious optimism has gradually morphed into apathy. 

“I haven’t received anything from them in years, and I’ve really stopped believing anything was going to happen,” Luke Jones said. “It’s an empty field, and I have to look at it every day.”

Jones has lived a stone’s throw from the former Candlestick Park in Bayview for some 30 years. He’s watched the entire length of the effort to transform the site through his window, from the dusty demolition of the stadium to the halted construction to its current barren state. 

Many Alice Griffith residents consider each other family after generations of growing up together. People barbeque, set chairs around the blocks and chat, dirt bike around rewilded parking lots. But what they don’t have is painfully obvious: reliable buses, a grocery store, shops, and community spaces. 

FivePoint is back in front of the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday to ask for permission to move forward with a new plan, one that would prioritize the construction of a sprawling office campus during an unprecedented commercial real estate crash.

Meanwhile, community benefit payments meant to prevent displacement have been paused and critics say structures meant to reflect community members’ input have proven ineffective. The small portion of the project that has been completed communicates a sense not of hope but of neglect and dislocation.  

In the decade-plus since the developer and the city signed their original agreement, thousands have already passed or moved away. The Black population in Bayview-Hunters Point decreased by more than 6% between 2010 and 2022 — while the overall population of Bayview has increased by around 11%. Today, Black people represent just over one-quarter of Bayview residents. 

The developer has postponed its target date for completion from 2030 to the 2050s. By that time, the 62-year-old Jones said he — alongside the original dream of his neighbors — is likely to be long gone.

“It’s a slap in the face,” Jones said. “We took away your icon, and we’re giving you nothing. Years later, we’re giving you nothing, and years from that, there’s still nothing.” 

On the site today, you can see echoes of the stadium’s storied past: tattered memorabilia of old ticket booths and traffic signs in the 49ers signature scarlet. The vision pitched by FivePoint is harder to see on the sprawling mounds of dirt but can be charted across years of renderings, maps, and thousands of pages of development plans. 

Mission Bay is the model: a former industrial rail yard turned a city crown jewel. To complete that, FivePoint’s newly amended plans, which it will present Tuesday, seek to transfer 2 million square feet of office space to Candlestick from its nearby Hunters Point site, which has been stalled indefinitely amid a scandal where a Navy contractor falsified radioactive testing data. 

The shift would allow the developer to build an “innovation district” office campus, in addition to 7,200 homes, 32% designated as affordable. A previous plan to build a mall meant to rival Stonestown was scrapped in 2019 — delaying the construction of apartments that would have housed hundreds of San Franciscans by this year.

Suheil Totah, a senior vice president at FivePoint, grew up going to Giants and 49ers games at Candlestick and is now quarterbacking its development. Totah said the new version of the project could capture business lost to parts of the Peninsula, such as AI companies.  

“The focus on housing remains the same,” Totah said. “It’s just the types of commercial [spaces] are being expanded to allow for what we’re seeing in the market.”

Due to the delays, FivePoint is proposing the previously agreed-upon 2036 deadline for the project’s tax benefits be moved to 2070. Moreover, it’s asking for the city bond debt limit to finance the project to increase from $800 million in 2010 to $3.3 billion. Officials attribute this increase to higher construction costs, property values, and a longer development timeline.

A report from the Board of Supervisors Budget and Legislative Analyst found that the developer failed to comply with its original agreed-upon construction schedule for Candlestick and noted only 4.5% of its housing has been completed. 

The report offered a few policy options, including procuring a new developer, deferring approval and financial commitments until more progress is made, or requesting a performance audit on the project. 

Vigilant residents have pointed out that the amended plan includes no change to the community benefits fund — a pot of millions meant to provide services and prevent displacement of existing residents. 

The little-known Office of Community Investment and Infrastructure (OCII) manages redevelopments like Candlestick. In September, OCII’s oversight board approved the new plans, with Commission Chair Bivett Brackett the sole dissenting vote.

“We cannot push a project forward that does not put specific terms in place that will protect the future of the residents,” Brackett said at a July 11 meeting. 

Totah said FivePoint is “committed to fund the first phase” of infrastructure, which includes building roads and utility connections for housing on Harney Way. In the original plan, that work was supposed to be done last year. Now, the hope is to break ground by the end of 2025. With entitlement and construction, the units themselves wouldn’t be ready to move in until at least 2030 and likely longer. 

When FivePoint’s development deal with the city was approved, it was hailed as a model due to its strong community benefits agreement (CBA), which was posed as a critical hedge against displacement.

Attorney Julian Gross negotiated parts of the agreement in 2008. He said that while CBAs are useful tools, they aren’t a panacea to the harms of urban renewal.

Notably, these agreements require that local groups meant to receive money from a CBA are obligated to support development. For example, if a party took actions that slow development — like demanding further soil testing — their deal could be voided and they wouldn’t get access to funds.

“The right question to ask,” Gross said, would be: “Is the project delivering more with a CBA than it would have been without it?”

To date, FivePoint says it’s released $136 million in community benefits funds, but disbursement has paused as the project has stalled. Since 2010, the money has gone mostly to other real estate in the area: a build-out of the new Southeast Health Center, a soon-to-open Rafiki Coalition clinic, a new park, and a handful of scholarships between $1,000 and $5,000.

City officials list the developer as in compliance with all but two of 17 commitments, but most have yet to fully materialize. So far, there have been only five down-payment grants for prospective homeowners. And a pledged “interim African marketplace” was an event held 15 years ago.

“There’s still millions to be released,” said Supervisor Shamann Walton, who represents Bayview, adding he has FivePoint’s “commitment” to schedule future payments. 

Neighborhood groups have been key for accountability throughout redevelopment efforts in Bayview Hunters Point. But some of the most vocal are long gone like the Joint Housing Committee and the shipyard’s Restoration Advisory Board, which fought Navy plans to cover instead of fully clean shipyard soil.

One of the main forces meant to provide that counterweight for Candlestick is the Citizens Advisory Council, or CAC, a body of seven mayoral-appointed community advocates. But many locals say the group has been ineffective. Despite being scheduled for regular monthly meetings, a public calendar shows the full council has only met six times since January 2022. 

At their June meeting, the council unanimously approved support for the new plan. Instead of probing for answers, proposals were met with congratulations.

“The CAC is supposed to be a watchdog,” Bayview lifer Oscar James told The Standard. “But they don’t know what they’re doing.” 

At a prior CAC meeting, FivePoint planning director Catarina Kidd extolled the project’s affordable housing and jobs for Bayview, which has one of the city’s highest unemployment rates.

“Know your audience,” responded Bayview resident and retired city worker Veronica Shepard. “We’re being put in sardine cans and made to feel like we should be grateful.”

Part of Shepard’s point? Only around half of the 3,363 affordable units will be available to people making less than $101,000. Shepard said she ultimately supports the development advancing with community input to bring progress and opportunity to the neighborhood. 

CAC Chair Veronica Hunnicutt, Ed.D., advised Kidd to give her employer more credit for its prior work.

“Talk to them about [Alice Griffith] and what was accomplished there, so they know you have a real commitment to doing this project,” Hunnicutt said. She did not respond to requests for further comment.

San Francisco is a peninsula, but the Alice Griffith Community could perhaps best be described as an island. 

The revised development plan has set back the timeline for the completion of the infrastructure meant to connect Alice Griffith — formerly known as Double Rock — to the rest of the city. A park meant to cap off the Alice Griffith neighborhood in 2026 is now being pushed to 2042. 

FivePoint enlisted nonprofit housing developer McCormack Baron Salazar to build the complex; the mood at the 2018 ribbon-cutting ceremony was celebratory. The event attended by Mayor London Breed and Nancy Pelosi touted that 90% of the families living in the previous public housing were successfully moved into the new housing units.

Multiple visits to the complex and conversations with dozens of residents could not find a single person aware of the changes to the nearby Candlestick site. 

If there is one common thread of agreement, it’s that conditions have rapidly deteriorated. Apartments and entryways regularly flood. Exit signs are commonly missing, along with fire extinguishers. Elevators are frequently in disrepair and many of the building’s laundry machines have doors ripped off the hinges. 

City officials blame reduced operating income and increased operating costs as a reason for maintenance challenges. In recognition of the management challenges, John Stewart Company was brought in as a new property manager for the site in 2019. The company did not respond to a request for comment.

Walton said Alice Griffith residents are his primary concern about the Candlestick redevelopment. 

“There’s been a lot of mistakes made. I’m not defending the developer at all,” Walton said. But, he went on, “this project has been delayed for years. We have nothing but a big dirt hole. Delaying anything would not hurt (the developer), it would only hurt the community. I’m not gonna do anything that leaves Alice Griffith out.”

While the supervisor acknowledged that “we haven’t seen the benefit” of neighborhood investments made early on with developer funding, he vowed to hold FivePoint to their many promises to the community in the coming years.

In the playground at Alice Griffith, a homemade basketball hoop bolted to a pole makes for about a quarter-court game. 

The backboard is covered in stenciled names of people who’ve played lifelong resident Ben Molina, 72, at pickup games. 

“My first job was at The Stick scalping tickets,” Molina said, watching his 6-year-old grandson, Sincere, race around the playground on a bike. Molina raised his two daughters in Double Rock. Now, he’s helping raise his grandkids there.

“We were all excited for the mall when they first mentioned it,” he said. “You know how many years ago that was? I’ll probably be dead by the time they put anything up.”