Golden Gate Fields will soon be under new management, a national conservation nonprofit with headquarters in San Francisco, with the goal of transforming it into a public park.
The Trust for Public Land confirmed to SFGATE on Monday that it agreed to terms of a deal to purchase the closed-down horse racetrack, which is located in Albany and Berkeley, for $175 million. The option agreement was completed alongside the East Bay Regional Park District. Bay Area News Group’s Paul Rogers had the news first.
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“Golden Gate Fields offers a truly generational opportunity to reimagine a world-class bayside park for the Bay Area,” Guillermo Rodriguez, the trust’s vice president of the Pacific Region and its California state director, said in a news release. “With the East Bay Regional Park District and a wide range of public and community partners, we have the chance to expand shoreline access, restore vital ecosystems, and create a place where hundreds of thousands of residents can connect with the outdoors.”
The historic Bay Area race track closed down in 2024 after more than 80 years of operation and held its last race on June 9 of that year. Over its last five years of existence, it was the site of more than a quarter of all racehorse deaths in the state of California. Golden Gate Fields’ previous owner, the Stronach Group, also owns the Santa Anita Park in Arcadia.
Its future will ideally be a touch more animal-friendly. The TPL and EBRPD plan to turn the property into a contiguous stretch of public land connecting public parks such as Albany Beach, McLaughlin Eastshore State Park, Point Isabel Regional Shoreline, Albany Bulb and the Brooks Island Regional Preserve. That plan likely won’t come true until the 2030s, as the property won’t be ready for public use for about five years, according to Bay Area News Group.
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