Directly across the street from Pier 1 you'll find two plots of land. On one sits the tennis courts and swimming pools of the Golden Gateway Tennis & Swim Club—land owned by the Golden Gateway Center but previously controlled by the SF Redevelopment Agency. Next to this plot is Seawall Lot No. 351, a parking lot (owned by the Port of San Francisco).





Because the Port has jurisdiction over one parcel, they reviewed a project presented to them by San Francisco Waterfront Partners (the same developers of Piers 1.5 through 5) who want to build a mixed-use development project where the tennis courts, swimming pools and parking lot currently sit. They call their project the 8 Washington Property.

Their project includes two 8-floor (85-foot high), 170-unit condos, ground-floor restaurant and retail plus an underground 600-car parking garage. After the parking garage is completed, the developer proposes replacing some of the tennis courts and swimming pools for use of the Golden Gateway Tennis & Swim Club. The project would require the Club to be shut down for about two years during construction.

The project is in great dispute. If it goes through, who wins? And who loses?
Winners:

• The Port Commission (which gains lots of money)


• The investors with San Francisco Waterfront Partners, LLC (who gain a lot of money)


• The construction unions (who gain jobs and a lot of money)


Losers:


• The public** who like to swim 360-some days a year, in the only outdoor, heated pools in the City.


• The public who play tennis 360-some days a year on US Tennis Association-authorized courts.***


• The families whose children have enjoyed summer Kid’s Camp where they’ve played, learned to swim and play tennis.


• The public who will see a too-high building along the Embarcadero (85 feet and eight stories high, which is 45 feet higher than Pier 1 and any of the buildings along the waterfront AND 85 feet higher than its neighbor, Ferry Park). The 8 Washington project is out of proportion with any of the structures along the waterfront north of Ferry Park.

To read the 8 Washington Street development presentation to the Port Commission: CLICK HERE

To join the letter-writing campaign by the FOGG (Friends of Golden Gateway) group in protest of the project, please click on the FOGG website and follow their instructions: http://www.fogg.us/wp/

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* FOGG (Friends of Golden Gateway)

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** Although the Golden Gateway Tennis & Swim Club is a membership club, the public may use any of the club’s facilities by paying a fee to swim, play tennis, join the exercise or dance classes, enroll their children in the summer programs. Fully three quarters of members live outside the 94111 zip code.

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*** If the numbers of tennis courts are lowered from the current numbers of courts now available, the US Tennis Association will NOT authorize the use of the Golden Gateway Tennis & Swim Club for their competitions.

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