Presidio Of San Francisco

Soldiers once mustered at the Presidio of San Francisco before shipping out for overseas, but today the main parade ground is a barely used parking lot. The Presidio Trust, which operates most of the 1,491-acre national park on the edge of San Francisco near the Golden Gate Bridge, has hired a consultant and invited residents to develop ideas for transforming the main parade ground into "spectacular open space for the public."

Doris and Donald Fisher, founders of the Gap, have made an offer to fund the design and construction of a contemporary art museum that would be located in the heart of San Francisco's Presidio and would house their extensive collection of 20th and 21st century art.

"If someone was in San Francisco for only one day and came here," my friend, Mac, said, "he'd think this was the healthiest city in the world." It was a brilliant afternoon in April, and four of us were enjoying a slow Sunday walk on a new section of bay-side trail in the Presidio, the former Army base in the city's northwest corner that's now part of the national park system.

It is America's most commercialized national park. Its paying tenants have included former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and filmmaker George Lucas. But even with annual revenues of $50 million and an operating budget greater than those of Yosemite and Grand Canyon national parks combined, the future of San Francisco's Presidio is far from assured.

Filmmaker George Lucas won the right Monday to build a large-scale commercial development in the Presidio, a storied former Army base turned national park and one of this city's most coveted pieces of real estate. After months of intensive lobbying, Lucasfilm's Letterman Digital Arts Ltd. beat out a combined residential and office complex that would have included an Internet-based technology company. The winner will redevelop the site where the abandoned Letterman Military Hospital stands.

Cleveland-based Forest City Development Co. has been chosen to convert the Presidio's historic Public Health Services Hospital into an apartment complex. "We feel we have picked somebody who can deliver a high-quality project worthy of its location in a national park," said Craig Middleton, the Presidio Trust's executive director.

For the past two years, national park planners have proclaimed that the historic Presidio will be a "national park unlike any other." Their prediction is coming true, but not the way they envisioned. When the National Park Service officially takes over the scenic Army post Oct. 1, the Presidio will be the only national park occupied primarily by the U.S. Army.

The U.S. Marine Corps conceded defeat Friday in its battle to stage a large-scale experimental military exercise in the Presidio, the onetime Army fort that is now a national park. The Marines' War Fighting Laboratory had planned to land 700 troops on the beach March 15 near the Golden Gate Bridge for four days of exercises meant to test fighting skills and state-of-the-art equipment for urban warfare in the 21st century.

The Presidio, this city's last swath of available prime real estate, would be a residential and tourist destination under a plan unveiled Wednesday. But officials who oversee the land--a former headquarters of the 6th Army and now a national park--promise they will not sacrifice an island of tranquillity for a commercial circus. In opening the Presidio to the public, Congress said it must be self-sufficient by 2013.

For years, Crissy Field served as the industrial back door for the U.S. Army at San Francisco's historic Presidio military base. Strewn with rubble, paved with more than 40 acres of asphalt and scarred by an elevated freeway separating it from the rest of the Presidio, the field graphically underscored the post's 200-year military history. By trashing the site, the Army turned its back on the breathtaking mile-and-a-half panorama of San Francisco Bay visible from its shores.

Frustrated motorists sat in a traffic jam as a deer sauntered across the Golden Gate Bridge on Tuesday from Marin County into San Francisco and disappeared into the wooded Presidio nearby. Traffic was halted in both directions during the morning rush hour while the young deer, evading all efforts to get it off the road, was escorted by bridge employees across the span, delaying the commute across the bay by about 20 minutes.

Cleveland-based Forest City Development Co. has been chosen to convert the Presidio's historic Public Health Services Hospital into an apartment complex. "We feel we have picked somebody who can deliver a high-quality project worthy of its location in a national park," said Craig Middleton, the Presidio Trust's executive director.

Soldiers once mustered at the Presidio of San Francisco before shipping out for overseas, but today the main parade ground is a barely used parking lot. The Presidio Trust, which operates most of the 1,491-acre national park on the edge of San Francisco near the Golden Gate Bridge, has hired a consultant and invited residents to develop ideas for transforming the main parade ground into "spectacular open space for the public."

An archeologist for the Presidio suffered burns and blisters on her right hand after examining four vials containing a crystallized chemical, possibly mustard gas, found on the grounds, a spokesman for the former Army base said Monday. The vials were unearthed by Presidio Trust volunteers near an area of the national park known as Inspiration Point, where they were doing plant restoration work.

The executive director of the Presidio Trust has resigned amid allegations of financial mismanagement of efforts to convert the former Army post into a national park. James Meadows' decision to leave was announced Monday by the trust's board of directors, which voted unanimously to accept the resignation.

Lucasfilm Ltd. has signed an agreement to build a 23-acre office and film production facility at the Presidio, a former Army base in San Francisco. The company's plans call for a 900,000-square-foot campus for 2,500 workers. Officials with the Presidio Trust had been courting the film company for more than two years to build an office on the grounds. Lucasfilm's special effects and post-production company, Industrial Light & Magic, along with its THX Group, Lucas Arts Entertainment Co.

The executive director of the Presidio Trust has resigned amid allegations of financial mismanagement of efforts to convert the former Army post into a national park. James Meadows' decision to leave was announced Monday by the trust's board of directors, which voted unanimously to accept the resignation.

The National Park Service has unveiled the details of its sweeping $590-million plan to convert the historic Presidio Army post here into a "global center" to address environmental problems and foster international cooperation. In a break with traditional park management, the Park Service has called for leasing most of the post's 510 historic buildings to private, nonprofit groups that would stage conferences, establish visitor centers, provide workshops and conduct scientific research.

The Presidio, this city's last swath of available prime real estate, would be a residential and tourist destination under a plan unveiled Wednesday. But officials who oversee the land--a former headquarters of the 6th Army and now a national park--promise they will not sacrifice an island of tranquillity for a commercial circus. In opening the Presidio to the public, Congress said it must be self-sufficient by 2013.

Andrew Morrison remembers the rudest days at Crissy Field, when the sliver of waterfront land in the shadow of the Golden Gate Bridge was an asphalt-covered military junkyard--a blemish on the face of a world-class city. On his weekend in-line skating jaunts, he glided past an abandoned Army airstrip, fuel depot and toxic dump, over crumbled concrete and alongside rusting chain-link fences.