If you’re driving along Stenmark Drive to Point San Pablo, the road ends at a fork. Your only choice is to turn right and head up over the hill to Point San Pablo Harbor.
But on a recent Saturday morning about two dozen people went left and ventured beyond a gate that is usually locked. They were taken on a hike through a stretch of shoreline that hasn’t been open to the public for decades. They weren’t there just for views of San Pablo Bay and East Brother Lighthouse — they were there to imagine turning the Point San Pablo peninsula into the East Bay’s next regional park when a lease the city is holding expires in 2030.
Led by architect Andrew Butt, son of former Richmond mayor Tom Butt and a member of the Trails for Richmond Action Committee (TRAC), a group that advocates for completing the Bay Trail in Richmond, the invite-only tour was part of TRAC’s efforts to discuss turning the area into a park. It’s envisioned as an extension of the project underway in Point Molate, 81 acres of which were taken over by the East Bay Regional Park District (EBRPD) in July 2024.
Over the past 20 years, the volunteer-led TRAC has partnered with organizations including the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG), the Bay Trail Project, the Bay Conservation and Development Commission (BCDC), and the California State Coastal Conservancy to complete 24 miles of the Bay Trail in Richmond, funded primarily by grants.
Today, just six miles of trail remain unfinished. This includes a 4-mile segment extending north from the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge along the shoreline of Point Molate to Point San Pablo Harbor. The first 2.5 miles, which wind through Point Molate Beach Park to the Winehaven historic district, are under construction as part of the Point Molate park. In addition to the regional park, TRAC would like to see the last 1.5 mile completed as well, from the inactive Terminal 4 port to the harbor. Funding for the Point Molate project, they say, could be applied to this section.
A trip past the gate is a glimpse of what public access could look like
“It’s like the forbidden walk,” said Berkeley resident Simone Brumus, who until that private tour in June had never set foot on this particular stretch of shoreline.
That’s because Point San Pablo has a complex industrial history, resulting in today’s patchwork of land ownership. The former Terminal 4 port, just north of Good Hot’s beachfront saunas, where the tour began, and its surrounding lands are owned by the city and leased to Nematode Holdings, LLC, a company owned by Bobby Winston, president and CEO of Waterfront Jobs. For a base rent plus 40% of revenues, Winston sublets the property to private companies, including a Porta-Potty business, a junkyard and Good Hot. On a regular day, access to Point San Pablo beyond the Terminal 4 gate is limited to tenants and sauna visitors.
“We don’t think that a junkyard is the best use of this area,” Butt said as his guests gazed at rows of rusting cars.
The area was once a campground. Visitors could reserve sites, hike and enjoy views of the bay. According to Butt, the city shut that operation down in 2023, citing public safety.
“I think Bobby has struggled to find viable tenants,” Butt said.
“Point San Pablo has been on the back burner for a while… They kind of just thought they would deal with Point Molate first and then deal with point San Pablo. But now is the time for Point San Pablo.”
Bruce Beyaert, Chair of the Trails For Richmond Action Commitee
Winston’s lease is up in 2030, and he told Richmondside he has no plans to renew. At that point, TRAC argues, the city has an opportunity: Develop Point San Pablo for public recreation or keep leasing the land for industrial and commercial uses. If the pace of redevelopment at Point Molate is any indication, Butt says, planning needs to begin well before the lease expires.
The lease has been for “land banking,” where developers can maintain and improve parcels for future use.
“We did a lot of cleanup out there,” Winston said. “I’m very, very proud of what we’ve accomplished. We got Good Hot installed, that was crawling over broken glass on our hands and knees … and incubated something like eight or 10 brand new businesses.”
If the land were to be converted to a park, most of those businesses would have to relocate.
“They understand that,” Winston said. “It’s all a short-term rental scenario.” He hopes, at least, that Good Hot will get to stay.
“I don’t think it should be completely devoid of activity, but that’s really not for me to say,” Winston said. “I’m very differential to the Richmond community in terms of what comes next.”
The road to creating a regional shoreline park
In the morning light, Butt led the group up a eucalyptus-strewn path to a hilltop with sweeping views of the bay. Turkey vultures floated above and the breeze carried the sound of birdsong and the foghorn at the East Brother Lighthouse as he described the Ohlone villages that once hugged the peninsula. He asked his audience to close their eyes and imagine what it must have felt like to be here 100 years ago, when Point San Pablo was a center of maritime industry.
“It’s all downhill from here,” Butt joked as he led the group toward the water, past an abandoned building where finback, humpback, and sperm whales were processed until 1971, along the old Richmond Beltline, once the only way in and out of the peninsula, to Point San Pablo Harbor. Privately owned by self-proclaimed burners Rob Fyfe and Yaella Frankel, the harbor is home to creations once displayed at Burning Man and serves as a goat and chicken farm, a concert venue, and Sailing Goat, a restaurant whose chef, Arnon Oren, worked at Berkeley’s famed Chez Panisse.
The tour ended here. The land beyond the marina and its sculpture garden belongs to Chevron.
Parts of Point San Pablo that aren’t owned by the city or the EBRPD belong to the oil and gas giant, with one notable exception: a 20-foot wide rail parcel owned by the BNSF (formerly Santa Fe) and Union Pacific railroad companies. This corridor, which connects Terminal 4 to Point San Pablo Harbor, stands as one of the biggest obstacles to completing the Bay Trail.
“Chevron has already agreed to allow the easement for the trail,” Butt said. “But the railroad land would still have to be negotiated.”
According to Bruce Beyaert, chair of TRAC, the parks district is in discussions with Union Pacific, an effort TRAC is encouraging. But property negotiations with railroad companies can be notoriously difficult, Butt said. In the town of Dunsmuir, near Mount Shasta, it took decades for an agreement to be reached between the city and Union Pacific to build a hiking trail to a nearby waterfall.
Competing priorities within the parks district could also hinder progress. Golden Gate Meadows, site of the former Golden Gate Fields horse racetrack, was recently acquired by the Trust for Public Land with the intent of transferring ownership to the EBRPD to create a large public waterfront park. Funding for that project still needs to come together. In June, Gov. Gavin Newsom said he wants the state to contribute $125 million of the $175 million purchase price, using funds from Proposition 4, the $10 billion 2024 climate bond.
“So that’s consuming a lot of their energy,” Butt said.
In addition, EBRPD’s director recently resigned after five years of service, prompting a transition period that could result in projects at Point Molate — and by extension, Point San Pablo — to be put on the back burner.
Recently, the city of Richmond reallocated funding intended for shoreline development at Point Molate due to budget shortfalls. Facing a $1 million deficit in the budget for completing the Bay Trail, the city council diverted funds allocated for beach stabilization to the trail. The money for beach stabilization is expected to be made up for in grant funding.
Butt underscored the importance of securing funding from various sources for Point Molate and Point San Pablo. With enough outreach, he is hopeful the project can gain momentum.
“We want people to get fired up about the idea of what it could be,” he said.
That vision includes a 1.5-mile trail for walking, cycling and wildlife viewing and a park that would give kayakers and paddle boarders bay access via boat launches and small docks along the shoreline. The group envisions a picnic area, an interpretive center where visitors can learn about the peninsula’s rich history, educational signage, and improved beach access.
By the end of the tour, many participants were already picturing that future.
“Oh God, it would be awesome,” said Eleanor Judd of El Cerrito, who attended with her husband Leo Judd, a native of Point Richmond. The couple had visited the harbor many times to eat at the Sailing Goat and launch kayaks from Point Molate Beach but had never walked this stretch of shoreline.
“It would be really nice,” Leo Judd said. “Just because it’s going to be really hard, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t keep trying or pushing for it.”
I took an earlier tour with Bruce and can confirm the beauty of the place. The Point San Pablo area is, I have been told, the only remaining undeveloped headland on San Francisco Bay. The ground, I was told, is very contaminated from past industrial use and will be expensive to make safe. 2030 is not far away so planning needs to start now. The way to insure funding is in my opinion to bring more and more people to the place and create advocates for it’s construction
Yes, this area has untapped potential! Good Hot, Sailing Goat, and the sculpture gardens are all unique attractions. But getting there requires tolerating several eyesores that are less than welcoming. Will the Winehaven Historic District be cleaned up and made accessible to the public as part of the Point Molate work, in addition to the section of Bay Trail? Nature, cultural history, and business can and should coexist in this area.
But this will all be underwater in 24 – 74 years! I posted this a few days ago, but what I wrote about, citing sources from the Richmond Watershed Project, and earth.gov, and the City of Richmond’s own findings, is not shown, or counted in your “2 comments” so far. The idea of spending $millions to build a park/trails/facilities for a site that sea level rise will claim as part of San Pablo Bay in a few years is ridiculously wasteful, regardless of how nice it would be. So, spend the money to first clean up the toxins so they don’t wash into the Bay and contaminate life there. Also clean up toxins so they don’t spread through the water table, contaminating the ground where people live and grow gardens. If the projected sea level rise of 3.5 inches in the next 24 years doesn’t happen, then build out trails, a park, and other facilities for human enjoyment at Point San Pablo. Just know that the shores along San Pablo Bay are considered by scientists as the most vulnerable to inundation from sea level rise on this whole east side of San Francisco Bay. So living/working/playing around this area will not be possible long before the sea completes its takeover of the current shoreline inland to San Pablo Avenue and eastward. Unless you have a boat.