San Francisco residents clash over $50 million Crocker Amazon Park overhaul

A man with a bright blue-and-yellow macaw on his shoulder was arguing with a parks official, teens drifted past with coffee cups, and a woman dressed as the Lorax barked into a bullhorn about the trees that would disappear. By the time San Francisco Recreation and Park staff opened their workshop at Crocker Amazon Park, the April 26 meeting had become a fight over who gets to define improvement in southeast San Francisco.

The plan at the center of the uproar would re-orient the western half of Crocker Amazon into a baseball and softball complex with six new state-of-the-art diamonds, batting cages, a restroom, a central community plaza, field and pathway lighting, outdoor exercise equipment, expanded parking and upgrades to the dog areas. San Francisco Recreation and Park says the project would be funded equally through a joint partnership with the Giants Community Fund, the nonprofit arm of the San Francisco Giants that uses baseball and softball to promote health, education and character development. Public-facing materials have described the overall effort as roughly $45 million to $50 million, while the commission vote this month focused on a $28 million Giants grant and the public-private partnership agreement.

Opponents say the price is more than money. Keep Crocker Real, the neighborhood group leading the pushback, says the design was presented after the biggest decisions had already been made, and that residents were being asked to react to a plan that felt pre-decided. They say the project would require removing 98 trees and would replace mature canopy with synthetic turf and a more intensive sports footprint. The group is pushing a competing People’s Plan that would keep the mature trees, avoid Giants money and use real grass instead of artificial turf. Parks staff and translators were on site, a sign the city expected a large, multilingual turnout, but the divide between city tents and protest signs remained plain.

The Recreation and Park Commission unanimously voted in April to recommend that the Board of Supervisors accept the $28 million grant and approve the partnership, moving the project one step closer to approval. If the project clears the remaining review, Rec and Park says construction could begin as early as 2027 and the renovated park could open in 2028. The commission also approved the name Willie Mays Fields of Champions for the ballfield complex, though that would take effect only if the renovation moves forward.

Crocker Amazon has long been one of the city’s main sports hubs in the southeast. Rec and Park says the park includes five full-size lighted soccer fields, plus baseball and softball fields, tennis, basketball and bocce courts. The soccer-field renovation there reopened in October 2023 after a turf replacement, and historical planning documents show Crocker Amazon Playground has hosted team-sport recreation since the 1930s, when its original 1934 design called for 11 baseball fields and a 1965 layout showed seven. That history is now at the heart of the clash, with one side arguing for a modernized athletic complex and the other insisting the park should stay open, green and shared.