The $3 billion project is being handled by a public-private partnership among the Giants, Tishman Speyer and the Port of San Francisco.getty images
The San Francisco Giants have already built one of baseball’s crown jewel ballparks. Now, they’re in the midst of attempting to do something even more difficult: building a mixed-use waterfront neighborhood to go with it.
“We really see this as Giants Baseball 2.0,” San Francisco President and CEO Larry Baer said of the franchise’s $3 billion Mission Rock project in public-private tandem with Tishman Speyer and the Port of San Francisco. “This is a major urban development that is really the biggest development of its kind tied to a sports venue.
“A baseball team, in many ways, is kind of a quasi-public utility. At least that’s the way we see it. You wear San Francisco across your chest. We’re the San Francisco Giants. And while we’re privately owned, people associate us with civic purpose and civic good. So for us, this was a logical extension.”
It was Baer who helped assemble the ownership group that kept the Giants from moving to Tampa in 1992. And it was Bear who helped spearhead the development of the 41,331-seat gem now known as Oracle Park, which opened in 2000 and has a lease that runs for 66 years.
Baer regrets that the team didn’t start this mixed-use process sooner. The Giants started acquiring the rights to some of the surrounding ballpark area in 2008, and seven years later — during which time the Giants won three World Series titles — 74% of San Francisco voters approved the Mission Rock project. The Giants selected Tishman Speyer as a 50-50 development partner in 2018, and construction began two years later.
Phase I was recently completed, and Baer anticipates the four-phase project will be wrapped up by the end of the decade.
“If you even have the greatest vision of the future, 25 years ago, in Mission Bay/China Basin, and you see it today, there’s no way in my view you would believe what they’ve created, just how spectacular it is,” former Bay Area sports executive Andy Dolich said.
Upon total completion, the 28-acre Mission Rock site across from McCovey Cove is expected to feature up to 11 buildings, approximately 1.4 million square feet of office and life science research space; approximately 200,000 square feet of restaurant space; at least 1,000 rental units available at a range of incomes (40% of which will be affordable housing); and eight acres of parks and open space. Pier 48 will also be renovated, and a parking deck will be constructed.
Giants president and CEO Larry Baer said, “We really see this as Giants Baseball 2.0.”usa today
“Our theme, and I think it’s an important and new principle in urban planning in today’s world, is ‘Live, Work, Play,’ and that’s exactly what we have in this neighborhood,” Baer said.
Along the way, the Giants are creating a new version of what mixed-use development means.
“The Giants truly led the way on this in a way that set the tone for a lot of other teams and cities to try and emulate,” said Fran Weld, the team’s former senior vice president of strategy and development who has since launched her own consultancy, the Canopy Team. “Mission Rock is a neighborhood that stands for all of San Francisco. And I think it’s been really well-received and become a beloved part of the city because of that. It is not about the Giants. It is not about a sports and entertainment district, and I think that’s going to be the future of how teams are engaging with development going forward.”
As for the Giants’ future, they’ve struck out in recent attempts to import high-dollar talent (think Aaron Judge and Carlos Correa), and the money for free-agent expenditures in the near future won’t come from Mission Rock. At least not yet.
“This is a long-term play,” Baer said. “This isn’t 2024, ‘Oh wow, they’re springing tens of millions of dollars of profit, and we’re going to put it toward players, ballpark improvements or the minor-league system.’ That’s not the way it works. This is a long-term asset that will be compelling over time. But today, we’re still investing. As rent dollars come in, those go toward building the next phase.”
Those rent dollars are already flowing. Visa, a 25-year partner of the Giants, announced it was moving its headquarters into Mission Rock in 2019, becoming the first commercial tenant in the neighborhood. The Giants are an equity investor in the Visa global headquarters. The 13-story building opened in June and includes award-winning restaurant Che Fico, part of an emphasis on Bay Area food favorites in Mission Rock that will also include Arsicault Bakery and its renowned croissants.
The Canyon, a residential complex that is part of the recently completed Phase 1, features stunning views.getty images
Still, it has been a delicate balancing act.
Baer estimates that the Giants and Golden State Warriors, who play at nearby Chase Center, generate a combined six million people per year in foot traffic between the two venues for games, concerts and other events (a number that will rise once the WNBA’s Valkyries start play at Chase Center in 2025). A bronze statue of Giants legend Willie McCovey at China Basin Park provides an Instagrammable moment for fans. Other events at the waterfront park include yoga classes, movie nights, ecological education classes and community walks. It isn’t just about attracting fans to bars and restaurants on game nights, Baer said.
“We want to be a community asset,” said Sara Grauf, Giants senior vice president of experience development. “We don’t want it to be kind of a manufactured ballpark village. It needs to have its own identity. It needs to be a place and a community outside of the days that Oracle Park is activated. So we’re trying to be very careful and intentional about how to figure out what that balance is.”
Phase I of the project included the completion of four buildings, two residential and two commercial: Visa’s Market Support Center, The Canyon, Building B and Verde. There are 1,000 employees working in the Visa building, and Baer expects the second office building to be leased in the coming months. By next baseball season, there will be increased retail and restaurant offerings.
“It’s hard to quantify the economic impact of creating a new place,” Tishman Speyer managing director Maggie Kadin said. “We’ve spent north of $1 billion here. We’ve done some of that spending in partnership with the Port of San Francisco, where we’ve kind of enabled all of this development to move forward. That was north of $200 million, building the parks, the infrastructure and the streets that support the vertical development. It’s a layered approach in terms of how the spend and the economics flow back to the city.”
A timeline for the next phase is unclear.
Visa’s global headquarters are also part of the Mission Rock development, and the Giants are an equity partner.getty images
“It’s incredibly expensive to build,” Kadin said. “There are challenges on the operating side of the world in terms of the costs, and then the rental market just isn’t as strong as it is in places like New York that have had pretty strong resurgence post-pandemic.
“We believe in Mission Rock long term. We believe that this sub-market that Mission Rock is in is actually doing remarkably well on a relative basis in San Francisco. People love being on the water. The views are fantastic. The newness, the cleanliness, all these factors really bode well. But we need a little bit more tailwind to try to really push that next phase, and we’re certainly not resting and just waiting for that to happen. We’re trying to be proactive with outreach and conversation, and working with our partners to find viability.”
Weld said the Phase I design was “super intentional” because it could stand on its own.
“It was almost like the completion of the ballpark,” said Weld, who ran point for many parts of the project, from land entitlement to finding a development partner. “Everything you see from the seats is now completed, and you have that full circle around McCovey Cove and China Basin.”
Dolich, a former executive with the Oakland A’s and San Francisco 49erswho now operates a sports consultancy, sees significant global opportunity for the Mission Rock neighborhood, given that the 2026 World Cup and Super Bowl LX with be coming to the Bay Area.
“These mega developments, to me, are the last town squares left in our society,” Dolich said, “in that tens of thousands of people, and millions over time, are coming to the venue; they’re coming to walk and see where splash homers are hit; they’re going to shop in the new retail stores; they’re going to events at the Chase Center, and they’re getting along.”
