Presidio Trust selects 4 finalists for development of Fort Scott

The Presidio Trust board decided Thursday to allow four teams to submit comprehensive proposals to transform the 30-acre Fort Scott in San Francisco into a socially conscious enclave — an effort estimated to cost the developers at least $200 million.

Three of the finalists proposed developments dedicated to “significant environmental and/or social challenges of our time,” as required by the Trust. They include efforts dedicated to climate change, artificial intelligence and the impact of rapidly changing technology, or the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The fourth proposal came from We Work, a for-profit company that creates shared work spaces.

The proposal to create the Epicenter for Climate Solutions would develop the site into a “command center” to implement solutions to climate change, to be a global gathering place for what the project calls “climate solutioneers.” The plan is sponsored by the California Clean Energy Fund and the EPIC Institute, headed by Thomas Dinwoodie, a founder of Sunpower Corp.

The World Economic Forum, which hosts the high-profile Davos summit each year in Switzerland, proposes to study the “Fourth Industrial Revolution.”

The project would convert the former fort into a center committed to “bending the curve of technology for the benefit of all.” That could include looking at the impact of 3D-printed artificial hearts in the health industry and how such a world-altering innovation would be made available across the income gap, said Murat Sonmez, managing director of the Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

The project would not be a “think tank,’’ Sonmez said, but rather a “do tank.”

The third proposal is called OpenAI, which is sponsored by Tesla founder Elon Musk and venture capitalists Peter Thiel and Reid Hoffman. The effort would create a research and advocacy center focused on the potential and challenges of artificial intelligence. The site would be developed to include a laboratory, recreation area, housing for visiting researchers and scholars.

The We Work proposal envisions a mixed-use campus that could potentially accommodate the other proposals as well as nonprofits and private companies, something Presidio Board President John Keker supported.

“I’m really hoping there’s going to be some collaboration in some way,” he said.

Fort Scott is in the northeast corner of the Presidio, situated along the Pacific coast and originally built to defend the Golden Gate. The site includes former barracks buildings, a parade ground and idle stockade and a small officers’ club from 1921, engulfed in overgrown vegetation.

Any organization chosen to develop their project would have to rehabilitate 22 historic structures and upgrade utilities, roads and other aspects of facilities that have sat idle for decades.

While other areas of the Presidio are rented at market rate, Fort Scott, which is in a more remote location, has long been identified as a site for a “mission-driven organization.”

The Presidio Trust board is expected to select a proposal in late March.