Trust for Public Land Secures $175 Million Deal to Transform Golden Gate Fields Into Waterfront Park

Twenty-one months after jockey Assael Espinoza guided Adelie across the wire in Golden Gate Fields' final race, the Trust for Public Land put $175 million on the table to determine what happens to those 161 acres of San Francisco Bay shoreline next.

The nonprofit secured an option agreement with The Stronach Group on March 31 to acquire the former Albany/Berkeley track and eventually transfer it to the East Bay Regional Park District as a publicly accessible waterfront park. The option is expected to close by end of 2026 or early 2027. The Stronach Group, which has owned the property since 1999, is contractually responsible for demolishing the grandstand, stables, and all adjoining structures before the transfer closes.

TPL still needs to raise the full $175 million purchase price, drawing from private philanthropy, state resources, and local and regional partners. Guillermo Rodriguez, TPL's California state director and vice president of the Pacific Region, described the project as "a truly generational opportunity to reimagine a world-class bayside park for the Bay Area," citing plans to expand shoreline access, restore vital ecosystems, and create outdoor recreation space for hundreds of thousands of residents. The plan links the site into a roughly 8.5-mile continuous ribbon of bayfront public access alongside existing adjacent parks.

For the racing industry, the deal formalizes a loss that started the moment The Stronach Group announced Golden Gate's closure in July 2023. With Bay Meadows gone since 2008 and Golden Gate Fields running its final card on June 9, 2024, Northern California has no major Thoroughbred track. The California Horse Racing Board denied Northern California fair circuit date applications for 2026, meaning there is no Thoroughbred racing in the region this year. The year-round circuit that once rotated between Golden Gate Fields and five fair venues has collapsed entirely.

The financial architecture of the deal carries its own irony. The Stronach Group, which also owns Santa Anita Park in Southern California, now receives approximately $20 million annually through a redirect of simulcast revenue, a payment structure that only became possible once live racing in Northern California ceased. The company's April 2024 mass layoff notice, covering 75 or more workers as required by California law, formalized the displacement of backstretch employees who had lived and worked on the property, many with no clear alternative.

TPL director of government affairs Juan Altamirano confirmed the trust expects the purchase to close by year's end or early 2027, after which EBRPD assumes long-term stewardship. Sierra Club California publicly welcomed the announcement, and local officials in Albany and Berkeley framed it as a climate resilience investment that could bring tidal marsh restoration to a stretch of shoreline that drew 20,000 fans to its 1941 opening.

That grandstand, along with every barn and stable behind it, will be demolished at Stronach's expense before a shovel of park-grade earth is turned. What California racing inherits from the whole transaction is a smaller map: Santa Anita and Del Mar now carry the entire commercial calendar, and the infrastructure that once anchored Northern California horsemen has no replacement on the drawing board.