Old building razed for grand new view
14-acre Presidio parkland to open the panorama from bridge to Alcatraz
On a day that was decidedly unphotogenic, a small crowd gathered in the Presidio of San Francisco to mark the next step toward creating 14 acres of parkland that will be all about views.
The occasion was the demolition of one of the homeliest buildings in the former military base, a squat stucco box from 1989 that long held a Burger King. But the structure being deconstructed, most recently known as the Observation Post, occupies a bluff with an unbroken panorama from the Golden Gate Bridge to Alcatraz — though in the pall of smoke hanging over the bay on Thursday morning, neither icon was distinct.
Many of the people on hand wore face masks, and the speeches before the mechanized claw punctured the mock-tile roof were held next door in the national park’s visitor center.
“How awful that, in a milestone event for a park, we all had to be inside,” said Jean Fraser, chief executive officer of the Presidio Trust. The trust manages nearly all of the 1,491-acre Presidio, which
“This is huge. We’re creating parkland that will be used by everyone.” Jean Fraser, chief executive officer, Presidio Trust
is part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area.
Bleak haze aside — a feature all the more grim since it’s a reminder of the ruinous Camp Fire still burning 150 miles to the north — the demolition was being celebrated because of what it represents.
The former Burger King sits on land that will be covered by part of a new 14-acre green space. Known as the Tunnel Tops, it will begin in the Presidio’s Main Post at the edge of the Main Parade Ground and then fold down to Crissy Field. As it descends, it will cloak the eastern tunnels of Presidio Parkway, the boulevard that replaced the elevated Doyle Drive viaduct.
The cloak will be fashioned from much more than, say, truckloads of sod.
What’s planned is a pair of view-friendly lawns amid mostly native trees and shrubs and gardens. A “cliff walk” will outline the recon- stituted terrain above the tunnels. Steps will descend toward Mason Street alongside a new children’s learning center with an environmental playscape.
All this is ambitious — and expensive. The budget for the project is $100 million, up from $50 million when a design competition for the Tunnel Tops was announced in 2014. All but $10 million of the budget will be funded by private donations, of which $72 million has been raised so far.
“You have one big moment to deliver something as extraordinary as the park within which it’s set, so we wanted to take advantage of the opportunity” said Greg Moore, executive director of the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy. “This location deserves the best we can give it.”
The project’s planners and designers express confidence that the extra time and money will pay off in the end.
“We’ve had a great opportunity to tie the (future) spaces better to the Presidio,” said Rania Rayes, the trust’s design manager for the project. “The vision was there all along. We’ve had time to massage it, to ground it in the place.”
Rayes’ view was seconded by Richard Kennedy of James Corner Field Operations, the landscape architecture firm best known for its work on High Line park in New York.
“Our first idea involved more of the parade ground extending down toward Crissy Field,” said Kennedy, who heads the San Francisco office of Field Operations. “The final design is more sequential, with more diversity of experiences. The view is still the (initial) draw, but we wanted to create reasons for people to come back.”
The design team and trust planners also have worked to incorporate natural elements of the Presidio into the newly created terrain.
Not only will the plantings include roughly 50 species native to the Presidio, 100,000 seedlings for the project are being raised in Presidio greenhouses. The sculpted benches along the cliff walk will be milled from cypress trees that were planted at the Presidio by the military in the 19th century but have reached the end of their lives.
“You can’t put a price on cypress like that — it’s so valuable,” Rayes said. “We’ve stockpiled it, and we’re waiting to put it to use.”
The benches and plantings are still a ways off.
Basic demolition of the former Burger King should be completed by the weekend. The wood and metal remnants will be gone by December. Work is also about to start on interior demolitions within the old Crissy Field Center along Mason Street, and the historic building will become part of the educational complex.
Next spring, dirt will be carted in and dumped atop the tunnels — and then sit for several months so that the soil compacts. Then, only then, can “real” construction get under way.
Fraser agrees with Moore that the wait will be worth it.
“The reason the Presidio was saved was so that it could be a park like none other,” Fraser said after the ceremony. “To me, this is huge. We’re creating parkland that will be used by everyone.”
Not everyone at the demolition derby was involved with the project.
Also on hand, some wearing face masks, were a halfdozen members of SF Sketchers. Doing watercolors not of the barely golden bridge to the west, but the close-up deconstruction.
“I’m trying to get a feeling of things falling apart, but there’s beauty in that,” said Laurie Wigham, who organized the outing.” This is part of the story of San Francisco right now.”