Bechtel gift to help transform Presidio Bechtel donation - largest in national parks history - to help transform space extending to Crissy Field marsh

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(09-27) 08:54 PDT SAN FRANCISCO -- The largest cash gift in national parks history is intended to be the catalyst to create 10 acres of parkland connecting the heart of the Presidio to Crissy Field and the bay.

The $25 million from the S.D. Bechtel Jr. Foundation will fund more than half the estimated budget for what is being called Tunnel Top Parkland. A new bluff will cover the rebuilt Doyle Drive, allowing for an unbroken landscape from Crissy Field's marsh inland to the Main Post of the former military base, which now is part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area.

The Bechtel gift, announced Friday, will also be used for youth programs at the Crissy Field Center, which sits where the bluff and landscape will emerge in 2016 after the new Presidio Parkway opens.

"It's an amazing act of generosity that makes possible the completion of one of the most amazing park transformations in the world," said Craig Middleton, executive director of the Presidio Trust, which manages the forested historic military landscape where the Golden Gate Bridge touches down in San Francisco.

The recipient of the gift is the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy, a nonprofit that has helped restore land within the GGNRA since 1981. The conservancy led the fundraising and planning efforts for the 100-acre restoration of Crissy Field that premiered in 2001 and has become a cherished part of the city. In recent years, the conservancy also has raised funds for an ambitious network of trails and overlooks within the 1,491-acre Presidio.

Fundraising strategy

Both of those projects were kicked off by eight-figure grants from the Evelyn and Walter Haas Jr. Fund, a local foundation, and then completed by donations of varying size from other donors rather than public money. This is likely to be the fundraising strategy for Tunnel Top Parkland as well.

"This gets us more than halfway there. ... All these projects have major donors, but also grassroots people who care about parks," said Greg Moore, the conservancy's executive director. One difference here, he said, is that money will be used to plan and design the new space as well as make it reality.

The basic concept has been set since the decision a decade or so ago to use the rebuilding of Doyle Drive as an opportunity to connect Crissy Field and the central parade ground of the Main Post. The $1.1 billion project replaces a seismically unsafe structure built in the 1930s with leaner viaducts and, in two spots, surface roadways that will pass through tunnels that then will be cloaked in re-created bluffs, bringing the Presidio down to the bay.

Uphill at the Main Post, several of the historic brick barracks have been restored in recent years. A spacious lawn has been added, replacing what was a parking lot.

The Bechtel gift is for changes that will occur east of the former commissary that now holds the retailer Sports Basement. That building has big changes in the works, with three teams competing for the right to turn its 8-acre site into a cultural center.

Projects in parallel

While the conservancy leads one of the teams, the two projects are separate.

"They'll go forward in parallel," said Middleton, who expects a design process for the bluff to be mapped out beginning within the next few weeks.

"We hope this gift will help spur others to join us in realizing this bold vision for new parklands in the Presidio," said Lauren Dachs, president of the Bechtel Foundation.

The foundation has given other, smaller donations for park improvements in the past. It was established in 1957 by Stephen Bechtel, whose family founded the enormous Bechtel engineering firm that remains based in San Francisco.