The deal is likely, and it is not closed. The State has put up $125 million and the Park District $20 million. The Trust for Public Land still has to raise about $30 million before its option to buy runs out on December 15. Below: the money, what the purchase does and does not pay for, the one question I have left open, and what I would ask for as the councilmember for the Berkeley side of the site.
Nothing on September 15 or September 29 decides anything about the racetrack site, the acquisition or the grandstand. Three items on those agendas are waterfront capital spending, and they show how that spending reaches the public record.
The resolution authorizes an application to the Metropolitan Transportation Commission’s Regional Measure 3 Safe Routes to Transit and Bay Trail Program for up to $25,000,000 toward construction of landside elements of the Berkeley Water Transportation Pier-Ferry Project. It is an application. Nothing has been awarded.
AnchorCM’s contract for on-call Waterfront project and construction management services increases by $1,000,000 to a total of $3,000,000, and extends twelve months to December 31, 2027. On-call management is how the waterfront’s capital program is staffed, which is worth knowing before anyone estimates what it costs to open a park.
Council is asked to ratify an amendment the City Manager executed during recess to the Team Ghilotti contract for the South Cove West parking lot, raising it to $2,220,381. The authority is lawful. The vote comes after the commitment.
The September 15 agenda was posted on September 3 and is final. The September 29 agenda was posted on September 17 and is final; the item numbers here follow it. Sources: the September 15 Council agenda, the September 29 Council agenda and the Agenda & Rules packet of September 14, which carried the September 29 draft.
The Park District presented these figures to Berkeley's Parks, Recreation and Waterfront Commission on September 9. The state money comes from three Prop 4 accounts: $12 million from the Natural Resources Agency, $53 million from the Wildlife Conservation Board and $60 million from the State Coastal Conservancy. The Legislature approved it on September 1 in a budget bill (SB 113); the Governor proposed it in May and is expected to sign. The Park District's $20 million is marked "to be approved" by its own board. If the Trust and the Park District raise more than $50 million by year's end, the bill lets the state pay less.
The state money has a cost elsewhere. Prop 4 is a $10 billion bond meant to be spent over fifteen years. Bay Nature reported that this allocation nearly halves the $43.3 million the Coastal Conservancy had left for San Francisco Bay programs, and takes from competitive grant programs that smaller conservation groups were counting on. The Park District itself said some of its own projects that expected this year's Prop 4 money may now wait. That trade is part of the price.
The Park District's September 9 slide says the agreement will cover the cost of environmental testing after acquisition, pollution liability insurance, and post-closing remediation and site work. That is a structure. It is not yet a signed document, and it has no dollar figures attached: not the testing budget, not the insurance limit, and not who pays if the cleanup costs more than the insurance covers. What eighty-three years of racing and stabling left in the ground won't be known until the testing is done.
The Park District's timeline is purchase by early 2027, transfer by spring 2027, a public process from 2027 to 2029, and phased development after that "as funding becomes available." No cost range has been published for any phase.
The Park District will own and maintain the site, so this falls on its budget and its taxpayers, which include Berkeley's. No annual figure has been published.
Albany's analysis: about $1.1 million a year in special revenues to the city (including $400,000 toward its emergency medical services tax and $287,000 toward its streets and storm drains parcel tax), about $700,000 to the Albany Unified School District, and $150,000–$300,000 a year to its general fund. The Berkeley Scanner asked Berkeley for the same figures in August and has not reported an answer.
Here is the fact the argument turns on. The $175 million appraised price "includes the removal of all above-ground structures by the current property owner." The Stronach Group agreed to demolish the grandstand, stables and other buildings as part of the sale, and scaffolding went up on the Albany side of the site in August. At the September 9 commission meeting, speakers objected that demolition is premature and that reuse should be studied first. That comes from an attendee's account; the minutes are not posted yet.
Every decision about this site so far was negotiated privately between a nonprofit and the owner, and the public process only starts after the sale closes. Demolition is the one step in the whole project that cannot be undone, and it is scheduled before anyone outside the deal has had a say. A large covered structure on a windy shoreline could have uses a park would want.
Keeping the buildings means reopening the purchase terms with a seller who, in the Park District's words, "really wants to move," with a December 15 deadline and $30 million still to raise. The grandstand's seismic and contamination condition is unknown, and no one has proposed a reuse budget. If the seller does not remove it, the public pays to remove it later or pays to keep it.
A named use, a cost to make the building safe for it, and someone willing to pay, in front of the Park District before December 15. Without those, demolition proceeds under the contract by default. With them, the Park District and the Trust have something concrete to weigh against the risk of reopening the deal. I'll hold my view until I see whether anyone brings that forward.
Because the purchase uses Prop 4 money, state law exempts the park's planning, design, construction and operation from environmental review under CEQA. That puts the weight on the public process the Park District has promised. Its schedule, its budget and its limits should be on paper before it begins. The Park District decides most of this. The City of Berkeley decides what it asks for and what it publishes about its own side.
What the testing covers, the insurance limit, and who pays for cleanup beyond it. This is the largest unknown cost on the site and the one most likely to decide what the park can be.
A first-phase construction estimate and an annual operating estimate, even as ranges, so the public process chooses among options it can afford.
What the City and the Berkeley Unified School District lose in property tax and any other revenue when the 40 Berkeley acres come off the rolls. Albany did this in May. A one-page memo from the Finance Department covers it.
What stays open, which lots serve the Tom Bates fields and Albany Beach, what "secured for safety" means for access, and how people can propose uses. If you have an idea for what should happen on the site in the meantime, send it to They Should!! and I'll pass it on.
The schedule, how Berkeley and Albany are represented, what the deed restrictions attached to the state money allow and forbid, and what the Park District board will vote on and when. The Park District's own slide lists "constraints of the funding and deed restrictions." Those constraints should be public before anyone is asked what they want.
The Berkeley Marina carries $163 million in unfunded infrastructure needs, per the City's September 9 presentation to the same commission. The pier-ferry project, the Tom Bates fields and now Golden Gate Fields are all on the same shoreline, run by different agencies on different schedules. Parking, trail connections and access roads cross all of them. The City should bring its waterfront plans into the Park District's process so the two share one map and one schedule. See also the ferry topic, in progress.
Golden Gate Fields runs as a racetrack. The Stronach Group has owned it since 1999.
Voters approve Measure WW, which sets aside $20 million toward this site. The Park District names it as an acquisition goal in its 2013 Master Plan.
The Trust for Public Land signs an option to buy the site for $175 million and transfer it to the Park District. Announced March 31.
The Governor's May budget revision proposes $125 million from Prop 4. Albany publishes its revenue-loss analysis.
Max Korten is named the Park District's permanent General Manager. Scaffolding goes up on the Albany side of the site.
The Legislature passes the $125 million in SB 113. Governor's signature expected; not confirmed on this page yet.
Korten briefs Berkeley's Parks, Recreation and Waterfront Commission (item 10).
The Trust's option deadline. The remaining ~$30 million has to be in hand.
Transfer to the Park District.
Public planning process with Albany and Berkeley, then phased development as funding is found.
The Legislature passed it September 1 and he proposed the money himself. I haven't found a signing record yet.
The sale terms put removal on the current owner. Which parcels, which permits, and whether Berkeley or Albany issues them, I don't know.
An attendee reported the Park District saying the site can't be fenced off. The Park District's published FAQ says it "will be secured for safety" after acquisition, with the Bay Trail kept open. Those may both be true. I'd want it in writing.
The slides are public. Remarks and public comment are from an attendee's notes until the minutes are posted.
Everything on this page is sourced to a public document or named press account. If you think I've read one of them wrong, tell me and I'll correct the page.