A vast flight of ducks rose from the marsh in a series of three waves. As they took flight, for a destination perhaps thousands of miles away, the morning sun cast the birds in a golden glow for a few seconds against the blue sky. The air was filled with a blend of squawks, wing beats and quacks.

“I worry about this going away,” said Ken Hofmann, best known in the Bay Area as the former owner of the Oakland A’s and across America as one of the nation’s most provocative and dynamic builders, entrepreneurs and philanthropists. At age 93, he’s also a devoted outdoorsman concerned about protecting nature and supporting youth education.

“I’ve got a lot of money, and it means nothing to me compared to how I feel about this,” Hofmann said. “I worry about passing it on to kids, the education (about the outdoors) they get in schools, making sure they know about the experience” in nature.

Hofmann, who deflects attention and has declined most interviews in the past 25 years, has proposed a $75 million facility called the Pacific Flyway Center. It would be located on the western edge of the Suisun Marsh, adjacent to I-680, about midway between San Francisco and Sacramento, within reach of some 10 million people.

Courtesy Dahlin Group / Special to The Chronicle

Teach someone to love nature, is his premise, and they will be inspired to protect it for life.

As envisioned, the Flyway Center might be termed a Sistine Chapel of nature. It would be open to the public as a showcase to tell the story of the Pacific Flyway, which spans thousands of miles as the primary north-south route for migratory birds in the Western U.S. — and the value of wetlands, waterfowl and wildlife.

The experience for visitors, Hofmann said, would somewhat replicate that at the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

Widespread support

Michael Sutton, a former member of the State Fish and Game Commission who networks with both chapters of the Audubon Society and the California Waterfowl Association, supports the project. “The Pacific Flyway Center will be a unique public attraction whose mission is to inspire conservation of the flyway.”

Steve Chappell, executive director of the Suisun Resource Conservation District, has echoed Sutton’s perspective and agreed to help in the permit process with a role on the advisory board.

“I have not met anyone, even the controlled-growth groups, that have opposed it,” said Claude Grillo, Hofmann’s right-hand man and a member of the board of trustees for the Flyway Center.

“We’ve gone to Washington, D.C., Sacramento, BCDC (Bay Conservation and Development Commission) in San Francisco, the Army Corps, and we’ve met with the officials in Fairfield and Solano County,” he said. “We’ve also met with bird watchers, duck hunters and many other conservation groups. Nobody has told us no. We haven’t had any opposition yet. We’re turning over the rocks to see if anybody is there, and we haven’t found anything negative.”

The facility would be a multitiered building with multimedia exhibits, an Imax-quality theater and elevated decks that overlook the adjacent 88,000-acre Suisun Marsh, the largest estuarine wetland marsh in America.

The matrix of sloughs, marshes, tidal wetlands, levees, fields and wild crops provides habitat for more than 220 bird species, including 25 waterfowl species, nine species of raptors that include bald eagles and peregrine falcons, and 21 other wildlife species that range from elk to mink to the endangered salt marsh harvest mouse, according to the Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Donating millions

To pay for the project and its operations, Hofmann said he has put together a support organization, a Concord nonprofit called the Pacific Flyway Fund, which he has jump-started with $5 million of his own money.

“If this takes too long (to put together), at my age, I may just throw my hands up and pay for it myself,” Hofmann said. “I think it would be stronger if we have partners.”

Blueprints show that it would have a 65,000-square-foot event center. Adjacent would be a 50-acre marsh with a boardwalk to provide a walk with wildlife viewing stations. The operation would be solar-powered; water would be drawn from runoff and wells.

The proposed location on the edge of Suisun Marsh would require an array of permits, Hofmann acknowledged. Though it would be a regional attraction, a local permit for water and sewer from Fairfield and Solano County would be required, for instance. Fairfield will place a measure on the November ballot that asks the public to approve annexing the property for the Flyway Center into the city limits in order to provide water and sewage hookups.

This is familiar territory for Hofmann. He developed Discovery Bay in the San Joaquin Delta, along with thousands of homes and apartment complexes. He also owns a golf club and operates a ranch in the Sacramento Valley with its own airstrip.

Courtesy Dahlin Group / Special to The Chronicle

Deep connections

Hofmann loves the East Bay and has donated millions to De La Salle High School in Concord. He often wears a De La Salle baseball cap and says it is one of the top high schools in America for sports and academics. With Steve Schott, he bought the A’s in 1995 to help keep them in Oakland. (He also once co-owned the NFL’s Seattle Seahawks.)

Income from crops at Hofmann’s Rancho Esquon in the Sacramento Valley go to a community youth center in Concord. The facility provides academic support and tutoring, as well as an outlet for recreational activities, Grillo said. Last year, Hofmann also opened the De La Salle Academy, which provides a program for underprivileged youngsters — food, books, tutors — to help prepare them for high school, Grillo said.

His interest in conservation stretches beyond the Bay Area. At 10,000-acre Rancho Esquon in Butte County, he and Grillo have converted 1,000 acres of rice lands to ponds, wetlands and uplands to support waterfowl and wildlife. “He put it in a conservation easement so the habitat can never be converted back to ag land for money,” Grillo said.

Once you see a marsh come to life, and watch thousands of birds lift off to fly, from ibis to blackbirds to pintail, it can transform how you feel about protecting nature, wetlands and habitat, Hofmann said. The Flyway Center would be designed to be such a gateway to that experience.

Desire to protect

Hofmann is an avid supporter of the California Waterfowl Association and Ducks Unlimited, and also has alliances with many people who do not hunt, including members of the National Audubon Society and Suisun Resource Conservation District. They have joined to support the Flyway Center.

Hofmann said some hunting foes don’t always realize the passion that he and fellow hunters have for protecting habitat, wetlands, wildlife and all of nature and its creatures.

“This past year, the whole season (100 days), I chose to shoot just one duck,” Hofmann said.

“There was this one morning where the pintail were flying in droves over me. I put my shotgun down and I just sat there in my blind and watched them fly. That kind of thing is very special, to just watch the birds fly, and a lot of us feel that way.”

Tom Stienstra is The San Francisco Chronicle’s outdoor writer. Email: tstienstra@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @StienstraTom