From the shuttered oval at Golden Gate Fields, you can see the Golden Gate Bridge, Mount Tamalpais, Alcatraz, the Bay Bridge and the San Francisco skyline. That's how the Mercury News described the view from an October 5 tour of the site. Behind that view, the big wooden grandstand, the stables, the dorms and the restaurant are still standing, along with about 50 acres of parking lot.

On Wednesday, October 21, the East Bay Regional Park District board voted unanimously to approve a $175 million deal for the 162-acre site, Berkeleyside reported. The first thing Albany will see come out of that vote is the racetrack being taken apart. Until the planning work finishes around the end of the decade, the park experience is the waterfront that's already open: the Bay Trail, Albany Beach and the Albany Bulb.

What the October 21 vote settled

The vote locks in who will own the site in the long run. The Trust for Public Land, a conservation nonprofit, buys the property from the Stronach Group, which has owned it since 1999. It then transfers the land straight to the park district. About three-quarters of the land is in Albany and the rest is in Berkeley. Racing there ended in June 2024 after more than 80 years.

Here's how the $175 million breaks down, as reported by Berkeleyside:

• $125 million in state Proposition 4 climate bond money, approved by Gov. Gavin Newsom. Of that, $60 million comes from the State Coastal Conservancy and $53 million from the Wildlife Conservation Board. Both agencies still have to vote on it, and those votes are expected later this year. The last $12 million comes from other Natural Resources Agency funds.
• $20 million in park district Measure WW funds, from the bond voters approved in 2008.
• $30 million in donations and grants that haven't been secured yet. That includes an expected $25 million grant from the San Francisco Bay Restoration Authority.

So the vote was a big step, but money and approvals are still outstanding. Allison Brooks, an assistant general manager at the park district, told Berkeleyside it was "a very complicated negotiation with many sensitivities."

The order things happen in

The park district's project page and recent news coverage lay out roughly this sequence:

1. Demolition permits. Albany and Berkeley both have to issue them before the buildings can come down.
2. The purchase closes. Trust for Public Land's state director told the Mercury News the group planned to exercise its option on December 15 and close escrow by January 14, transferring the land that same day. The park district's own page says the transfer is expected by spring 2027.
3. Public planning, 2027 to 2029. The park district leads this with the cities of Albany and Berkeley.
4. Construction, beyond 2029. It will happen in phases as funding comes in.

Planning runs three years and construction is open-ended. The closing and the demolition both fall this winter, and the Mercury News reports that a late demolition could delay or complicate the transfer.

Demolition is the part with a deadline

The deal requires the seller to remove the grandstand and its thousands of seats, the one-mile oval where 1948 Triple Crown winner Citation once raced, the stables that housed hundreds of horses, and the other buildings. The parking lot isn't part of the demolition. If demolition isn't done by the end of the year, the terms can be renegotiated.

The Stronach Group applied to Albany for a demolition permit on June 25. As of the Mercury News story, last updated October 13, neither Albany nor Berkeley had issued one. Albany City Manager Nicole Almaguer told the paper the city is waiting on more information from the applicant. "They need to give us more information on the actual timelines for the demolition and the circulation routes for the trucks," she said. She added that she hopes the city can issue the permit by the end of the year.

The Mercury News also pointed to the weather. Strong El Niño conditions raise the odds of many heavy storms this winter, and if the buildings aren't gone in time, the transfer could be delayed or complicated.

For people who live nearby, this is the first real change to watch for: truck routes, and then a skyline without the grandstand. The permit decision on those truck routes comes before anything new gets built.

What stays open the whole time

The park district says plainly that the Bay Trail will stay open. Once it owns the site, the district will fence it off for safety, and public access will grow over time as safety, restoration and infrastructure work gets done. When it opens, the new park won't be part of McLaughlin Eastshore State Park, but it will sit right next to it, with the Bay Trail running through both.

For McLaughlin Eastshore State Park, the park district's page lists an entrance at the west end of Buchanan Street with limited parking, and a lot on the south side of Gilman Street. Just north of the racetrack is the Albany Bulb, a city-owned peninsula you reach from the Buchanan Street waterfront. It has footpaths among concrete slabs, informal art and homemade structures. The City of Albany lists art landmarks including "Herons," "The Cove," works by the Sniff artists, and "The Castle" on the southwest corner, facing the Golden Gate Bridge. The Library Garden is a California-native garden planted in 2016. Volunteers with Love the Bulb tend it, and the group says it holds more than 50 native plant species.

Love the Bulb has events on the calendar over the next two months:

• Garden volunteer days: November 7 and 21, and December 5 and 19
• Fall spruce-up at the Library Garden: Saturday, November 7, 3:00 to 4:30 p.m.
• Nature-journaling meetup: Saturday, November 14, 1 to 4 p.m.

If you bring a dog, the park district's rules say dogs aren't allowed on beaches, wetlands or marshes. They must be leashed in parking lots, developed areas and posted areas, and kept under voice control everywhere else. The district's McLaughlin Eastshore map adds a leash requirement within 200 feet of trails and park entrances. On the city-owned Bulb itself, follow the posted signs.

Why the finished park will lean toward marsh

Ideas for the site are everywhere. At Albany's September 28 town hall, people suggested keeping racetrack landmarks, horse stables, event space, a hotel, a spa and mini-golf, according to the Albany Scanner. Assemblywoman Buffy Wicks told the Mercury News she hopes the site's mile of bayfront becomes a public beach, with room for youth soccer and baseball fields near the Tom Bates Regional Sports Complex. Berkeley Mayor Adena Ishii, on the same October 5 tour, said she'd like a natural shoreline, fields and walking paths, Berkeleyside reported. All of these are suggestions. None of them is a plan.

The money behind the purchase narrows what's possible. Berkeleyside reports that much of the Prop 4 funding has to go toward habitat restoration, returning the area to its historic wetlands, and climate resilience. Roughly 30 acres of the property is already underwater. "A large part of it will be habitat restoration," Brooks said. Measure WW money is more flexible and can pay for visitor amenities. Berkeleyside cites examples elsewhere in the system, like the Tilden golf course, the Little Train and the Lake Anza snack bar. The park district says the site isn't currently zoned for housing in either Albany or Berkeley. Residential development has come up in the discussion, and KQED reported it would need Albany voter approval and major infrastructure investment.

The wetlands focus has history behind it. The track sits on what used to be Fleming Point, a rocky headland surrounded by marsh. It was blasted flat with dynamite in the 1930s, and the rubble was used to fill the surrounding wetlands, including the ground the track sits on today. Before that, the site held an explosives company and a Berkeley garbage dump. Restoration would bring back some of the shoreline that existed before the racetrack.

In the meantime, park district General Manager Max Korten has said the district is considering interim uses such as more parking at Albany Beach and possibly food trucks. He didn't give a start date. The next dates that count are the State Coastal Conservancy and Wildlife Conservation Board votes later this year, and Albany's decision on the demolition permit.

If you're responsible for a home near the Albany waterfront, whether you own it or are settling an estate, and want to talk through how the park timeline fits your own plans, Myron Potter is glad to help. Book an appointment for a calm, unhurried conversation.