SF Giants and developer release new China Basin Park designs for Mission Rock – Curbed SF

September 30, 2019

Filed under:

This delayed development adjacent to Oracle Park will feature public space and over 1,000 homes

By Adam Brinklow

An illustration depicting a beach and grassy park right across a narrow bay from the ballpark.
Aerial view of China Basin Park, including the plaza and cafe in the foreground; the great lawn sloping down to the Bay Trail and water’s edge; the tidal shelves and beach in midday activity; and the Giants stadium just over McCovey Cove.
Renderings courtesy of Tishman Speyer and SCAPE

Following the end of the baseball season, the San Francisco Giants and developer Tishman-Speyer released new design renderings of the ambitious and long-delayed Mission Rock development Monday, offering San Franciscans scenes of bucolic bayside parks as the pair prepare to at last break ground on the project.

New York City-based SCAPE Landscape Architecture, recipient of the Curbed Groundbreakers Award in 2017, designed the new five-acre park, which will be christened China Basin Park.

According to the most recent numbers from the San Francisco Planning Department, the Mission Rock development will feature more than 1,300 homes, almost 40 percent of them below-market-rate housing.

But said housing remains largely out of sight in these new renderings, which emphasize China Basin Park and other public spaces planned for the site just south of Lefty O’Doul Bridge.

“A raised grove of trees helps mitigate wind impacts and simultaneously serves as an intimate gathering place,” reads a statement from Tishman-Speyer. “To the south, an engaging promenade connects the park to restaurants, shops and cafes spilling out of office and residential buildings.”

The east will feature a lawn stretching downwards to the water while “a beach and a series of accessible tidal shelves surrounded and populated by wildlife habitat will cascade into the bay, allowing direct access to the water for play, exploration and launching personal watercraft.”

An illustration of people relaxing on a grass hilltop lined with trees, with a white sailboat in the bay beyond.
Ground-level view of the great lawn, which offers both passive and active recreational space, extending down to the bay trail and water’s edge. At night, this space creates an open-space amphitheater for outdoor programming.

The Giants, who own the Mission Rock space (which presently serves as a parking lot), paired with Tishman Speyer in hopes of finally bringing the long-planned proposal to reality.

The team’s ambitions for the neighborhood date to 2007, which was almost an entirely different world in terms of San Francisco’s economic profile and housing realities.

Among the project’s hold-ups: persistent fears that sea level rise will swamp the future waterfront neighborhood, which is one of the SF areas most vulnerable flooding in most climate change models.

Nevertheless, permits are secured for Mission Rock, park and all; construction should begin by the end of this year.

An illustration showing bay waters lapping against step-like structures near a park.
At sunrise, attendees can find ecosystems within the tidal shelves, providing a terraced space for parkgoers to access the water. The bay trail, which hugs this area, offers direct access to a 500-mile trail connecting 47 cities.