Golden Gate Fields could soon become a new public park along the bay’s eastern shoreline, a deal announced by the Trust for Public Land described the former horse-racing track as an opportunity to expand outdoor access and restore ecosystems. The trust said it reached an agreement to buy the 161-acre property that straddles the Berkeley-Albany border and transfer it to the East Bay Regional Park District, nearly two years after the track closed in 2024.
Trust for Public Land California state director Guillermo Rodriguez said in a statement that Golden Gate Fields offered “a truly generational opportunity to reimagine a world-class bayside park for the Bay Area.” Rodriguez said the trust, working with the park district and public and community partners, would aim to expand shoreline access, restore vital ecosystems, and create a place where residents can connect with the outdoors.
Under the arrangement, Trust for Public Land director of government affairs Juan Altamirano said the nonprofit has agreed to purchase the property from its owner, the Stronach Group, for $175 million. Altamirano also said the trust has until the end of the year to exercise the option.
The East Bay Regional Park District would fund part of the acquisition, according to Director Elizabeth Echols, who represents Berkeley and Albany on the district’s board. Echols said the district will put $20 million toward the purchase using money that had been earmarked for the site in a 2008 bond measure.
Echols said the deal, if completed, would culminate in a public process to determine what to build at the new park. Altamirano said a project of that size typically takes five years to open to the public, while Echols said at this early stage it was not yet clear how much the park would cost, what environmental remediation might be required, or how the district would pay for the project.
As part of the transaction framework described by officials, Altamirano said the trust planned to seek both public funding and private philanthropy to make the purchase. The San Jose Mercury News reported that the acquisition could receive funding through a bond measure California voters approved in 2024 for projects to address impacts from climate change, and that the Stronach Group agreed to demolish the grandstands, stables and other structures on the property as part of the deal.
Local and environmental supporters said the conversion of the site would fill an open-space need along the bay. Echols said the project offered an opportunity to restore the land to a more natural state and to protect the shoreline as well as coastal communities expected to face climate-change impacts. She added that the costs and cleanup requirements were still being determined.
Among elected officials, Assemblymember Buffy Wicks said in a statement that transforming Golden Gate Fields “from an underused site of a bygone era into a vibrant public waterfront park is exactly the kind of forward-thinking redevelopment our communities deserve — one that reflects our values, meets today’s needs, and creates lasting public benefit for generations to come.”
The property’s redevelopment prospects have been a focus for decades, supporters said. Echols told Berkeleyside that the park concept had been “in our sights for several decades,” as the sport’s popularity waned and developers and some public officials considered other uses. Officials cited earlier proposals including a plan Rick Caruso pursued to build a retail center on the site two decades ago, as well as Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory’s later consideration of the property for a new lab campus.
Cheasty, a former Albany mayor and longtime advocate for creating open space at the site, said the acquisition would fill a gap in the 8.5-mile-long McLaughlin Eastshore State Park system, which runs from the foot of the Bay Bridge to the Brooks Island Regional Preserve off the Richmond waterfront. In a statement, Cheasty called the deal “a major milestone for our shoreline.”