Walk the Bay Trail east from the Marina Green this fall and the southern end of the East Harbor looks thinner than it used to. Most of the boats that once tied up in that corner have moved to open slips at the harbor's northern end or gone elsewhere. Many of the old wooden piers that held them are gone too, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

Those slips aren't coming back. The shallow basin closest to shore is set to become a community dock and recreation area for kayaks and other nonmotorized boats. The empty water is the earliest visible part of a five-acre park next to the Marina Green. PG&E's legal obligation to clean up the bay floor set the park's schedule, and resident opposition to blocked views set its layout.

A cleanup came first, and the park followed

Gashouse Cove takes its name from what used to stand there, a manufactured gas plant, as a Rec and Park speaker explained at a May 2026 Harbor Safety Committee meeting. The Chronicle describes it as a 19th-century power plant. PG&E's environmental cleanup of that contamination, carried out under a legal settlement with the city, is what's driving the project, the Chronicle reported in April.

That order matters. The city's official name for the effort is the Marina Improvement and Remediation Project, and the Recreation and Park Department staff report says the marina improvements "will be undertaken after PG&E completes a remediation project." The San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board oversees that work. PG&E and its engineers have spent the past decade studying the East Harbor.

Elsewhere on the northern waterfront, the same gas-plant legacy is behind a separate cleanup off Fisherman's Wharf. At a June 11, 2026 meeting of the regional Harbor Safety Committee, Port of San Francisco and PG&E staff described the Beach Street Offshore Sediment Remediation Project. Its 2026 work is focused off Piers 41 and 41½, PG&E is funding it at "several hundred million dollars," and it's scheduled to finish by 2030. That project has its own schedule and isn't the Gashouse Cove work. It does show how much of the city's waterfront is now being rebuilt around cleanup obligations rather than park wish lists.

The first version ran into Marina Boulevard

The plan the city approved this spring is its second try. The first one needed somewhere to put the boats moved out of the East Harbor, and its answer was about 185 new slips in the West Harbor. Those slips would have blocked views for Marina residents. After months of resident protests, the Board of Supervisors scrapped that plan in February 2024.

The Board went further than rejecting a drawing. It passed an ordinance limiting how far the West Harbor marina could expand. According to the staff report, that ordinance is why the current plan has 170 fewer slips than the version the Commission saw in October 2023. The Chronicle puts the total at 536 city-owned slips across the East and West harbors. It also reports that the new plan adds slips north of the East Harbor breakwater and blocks no views for homeowners on Marina Boulevard.

With fewer slips to work with, the department changed the mix. Some berths are moving from 20 and 25 feet to 30 and 35 feet, the sizes the staff report says are in higher demand at marinas around the Bay Area. Smaller boats would get side-tie spaces instead.

The 2024 fight is why the plan looks the way it does. Keeping the West Harbor small pushed the remaining slips north and freed up the southern basin for public use. Here's how the approved concept divides the waterfront:

What the water's edge is meant to become

The staff report describes the basin as "a place for all to have access to the water, even if they do not own a boat." The department says every amenity planned for the basin and the land around it came out of its community outreach. The Chronicle adds a small plaza, a picnic area, and new planting, irrigation, lighting and furnishings.

The public breakwater wasn't in the original plan either. According to the staff report, it was added in response to community feedback. It's meant to offer views of the Bay and Alcatraz and to put people out on the water without a boat.

The Recreation and Park Commission approved the concept unanimously on April 16, 2026, and accepted the environmental safeguards the planning department had approved. Commission chair Kat Anderson told the Chronicle's Sam Whiting after the vote:

"This plan is a culmination of years of government involvement and civic advocacy. This is going to be a beautiful waterfront recreational area, and I can't wait to get my paddleboard in the water there."

The fuel dock is still unsettled

One fixture of the East Harbor doesn't have a settled future yet. Under the approved concept, the Gashouse Cove fuel dock, which the Chronicle calls one of the few public fuel docks in San Francisco and a fixture of the harbor for generations, would move to the West Harbor near the St. Francis Yacht Club. Its fuel tanks are underground, and plans for a new West Harbor dock haven't been finalized.

The dock's longtime operator objected to the concept at the April hearing. She told commissioners the dock has served as a fuel station for fireboats during waterfront emergencies, and that the plan was "eliminating a resource that is not broken." Anderson responded that fuel service won't be interrupted during construction, the Chronicle reported.

The concern has reached the regional level. At its June 11, 2026 meeting, the Harbor Safety Committee of the San Francisco Bay Region voted to send the Bay Conservation and Development Commission, known as BCDC, a letter on maritime safety concerns about the "proposed closure of Gashouse Cove fuel dock," according to the meeting minutes. A San Francisco Sea Scout who spoke in favor of keeping the dock said law enforcement, firefighting and emergency response boats use it, that it's the only fuel for small boats along the city front, and that rescue crews often bring people ashore there. The letter was approved without dissent, and BCDC's representative abstained.

So the city's plan calls it a relocation, and the safety committee's letter calls it a closure. The research for this post turned up no final decision from the city, BCDC or the Board of Supervisors on where the dock ends up.

The calendar from here

As of the department's latest public update, posted April 17, 2026, the timeline looks like this:

1. Now through fall 2026: The project team is finishing construction documents, and the department expects to advertise the construction contract "this Fall." That's the department's stated goal. This post couldn't confirm whether the contract has been advertised.
2. Mid-2027: Construction is scheduled to start.
3. About three years after that: The staff report expects construction to take roughly three years, so if the schedule holds, the park would open around 2030.

The department posts updates on the project page. It lists project manager Monica Scott as the contact for questions and gives PG&E a separate line for remediation questions.

A change this size on the Marina waterfront shows up in more than the morning walk. Owners along Marina Boulevard and the blocks behind it may already be asking what years of construction, followed by a public dock and walkable breakwater, could mean for their own homes. If you're one of them, Michelle Harris Properties is glad to talk it through quietly with you. Request a Private Market Review, and we'll go over where your home sits relative to Gashouse Cove and how the project's timeline might fit your plans.