Obituary:
Gerson Bakar, developer behind SFMOMA, Mission Bay
Gerson Bakar, a lowprofile developer who made a lasting mark on the Bay Area landscape, died in San Francisco on June 5. He was 89.
Levi’s Plaza is his best-known project, a still-alluring blend of handsome brick buildings and naturalistic public space. But Mr. Bakar also was a catalyst in the development of the Mission Bay neighborhood and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art’s move to Third Street — two projects that have altered the map of San Francisco.
Unlike many of the politicians and philanthropists involved in such efforts, Mr. Bakar didn’t use them to seek out the spotlight.
“Gerson was unassuming — he didn’t want the attention,” said former San Francisco Mayor Frank Jordan, who was backed by Mr. Bakar in his successful 1991 mayoral campaign. “He always spoke his mind, but he wasn’t looking to be in the headlines.”
Part of this might have had to do with Mr. Bakar’s early years.
Philip Gerson Bakar was born in Petaluma on March 12, 1928, the grandson of Jewish immigrants from eastern Europe and the son of a chicken farmer. As a boy he would pick up and clean the eggs that brought the family its income.
For college he headed to UC Berkeley, where he graduated with a bachelor’s degree in business administration and a passion for real estate. Mr. Bakar eventually went into business with childhood friend Al Wilsey and embarked on developments in the Bay Area and Southern California.
An early success was Woodlake, a garden apartment community in San Mateo designed in part by now-renowned landscape architect Lawrence Halprin. One of his final large projects was Ellinwood, a treelined office park in Pleasant Hill.
In between came Levi’s Plaza, which opened in 1981 to immediate acclaim.
That project began with a fishing trip that Mr. Bakar took with Walter Haas Jr., the CEO of Levi’s at the time. The jeans maker was headquartered at the time in Embarcadero Center, and Haas didn’t like the tower life.
“He went up one elevator, his employees went up another elevator, and he was complaining to me about that,” Mr. Bakar told the UC Berkeley Oral History Center in 2006. “So I said, ‘Why don’t we move you out’ into a patchwork of blocks near the Embarcadero that Mr. Bakar already was eyeing for development.
With Halprin as the landscape architect, and a sensitive mix of lowslung masonry buildings amid a privately maintained oasis of willow trees, fountains, hillocks and an artificial creek, Levi’s Plaza felt as though it had been there all along. It still is owned by the Bakar firm, and Levi’s in 2009 renewed its lease for another decade.
Mr. Bakar’s role at Mission Bay was different.
He joined with a handful of other business leaders to convince landowner Catellus and then-Mayor Willie Brown that in the long run the way to jumpstart the moribund 300acre rail yard was to give 43 acres of it to UCSF for a new research campus. Mission Bay now is almost fully developed, with the Golden State Warriors’ new arena set to open there in 2019.
UCSF Mission Bay also is one of the few places where Mr. Bakar and his wife, Barbara, attached their name to their widespread philanthropic efforts. They were lead donors for the 70-bed UCSF Bakar Cancer Hospital that opened in 2015.
In the case of SFMOMA, Mr. Bakar was the board member who in the 1980s led the hunt for land where the private institution could build a permanent home. He eventually settled with city planners on a site on Third Street between Mission and Howard streets, an area at the time defined by parking lots and failed development plans.
There was some trepidation on the board at moving south of Market Street — terra incognita for many upper-crust San Franciscans — but Mr. Bakar held his ground. The museum opened in 1995 and has flourished ever since, opening a new wing of equal size last year.
“Gerson’s legacy at SFMOMA is nothing short of profound,” Neal Benezra, the museum’s director, said last week in a statement. “I can say with certainty that the museum would not have made the bold and pioneering move to Third Street without his dedication and leadership.” Ever businesslike, Mr. Bakar told UC Berkeley interviewers that there was another upside to his time-consuming involvement with SFMOMA.
“The time frame of getting the property put together and getting it built was a time in the real estate market where everything went to the dogs,” Mr. Bakar said. “And I did no developing. So I say with honesty and candor I made a lot of money off of SFMOMA.”
He is survived by his wife, Barbara Bass Bakar; a niece; two greatnieces; and one greatgreat-nephew.
Memorial services were held this month.