Drive past the old grandstand on any weekday and nothing has moved. The gates are still closed. The track surface has sat untouched since the last race ran in June 2024. If you didn't already know something was happening, you'd assume the 161 acres between Albany and Berkeley had simply been forgotten.
Sacramento has not forgotten it. In the past week, state lawmakers introduced a bill that would send $125 million toward buying the site and turning it into public parkland, and the gap between "an idea people like" and "a deal that's actually funded" just got a lot narrower. It is not closed yet. Here is what changed, what still has to happen, and the part of this story that gets skipped in most of the coverage: not everyone on either side of the city line is affected the same way.
What Just Happened in Sacramento
On August 29, State Senator Jesse Arreguín's office introduced SB 113, a budget trailer bill that would direct $125 million from California's Proposition 4 climate bond toward the Golden Gate Fields purchase. Governor Gavin Newsom already signed the state's main 2026-27 budget back in June, but the climate bond piece was left unresolved. SB 113 is meant to close that gap, and it needs a signature by the end of September.
The full purchase price the Trust for Public Land agreed to with the site's owner, the Stronach Group, is $175 million. Add up where that money is supposed to come from and the picture looks like this:
- $125 million from the proposed state allocation (Prop 4 climate bond funds)
- $20 million already committed by the East Bay Regional Park District, drawn from Measure WW, the parks bond voters approved in 2008
- Roughly $25 million that Citizens for East Shore Parks director Robert Cheasty says is likely available from sources typical for projects like this one, not yet publicly named
- About $5 million expected from philanthropic donors
That's $175 million on paper. Whether it's $175 million in hand by the deadline is a different question.
Why "Funded" Doesn't Mean "Final"
Even the people running the acquisition are careful not to call this settled. When the state's earlier $125 million commitment was first floated in May, Guillermo Rodriguez, who leads California operations for the Trust for Public Land, put it plainly in a public statement:
"This campaign is far from complete."
The Trust holds an option agreement, not a signed deed. That option has a clock on it. Public reporting on exactly when that clock runs out has shifted over the course of the year: coverage in the spring referenced the end of 2026, while the East Bay Regional Park District's own project page and the most recent Berkeley Scanner reporting from August 30 both now point to early 2027. Either way, the money has to be fully secured, the state budget language has to survive its final vote, and the sale has to close, all inside the next several months.
If the funding doesn't come together in time, the option lapses and the site's future opens back up. That includes the possibility land use pressure returns, given that Bay Area racetrack sites elsewhere, like the properties that became San Bruno's Tanforan mall and San Mateo's Bay Meadows development, ended up as commercial or housing projects instead of parkland.
The Split Nobody Mentions: Albany Carries the Weight
Here's the detail that gets flattened every time this story runs as "Berkeley and Albany get a new park." The 162-acre parcel is not split evenly. The majority sits in Albany: the grandstand, the parking lots, the oval track itself. Roughly 40 acres, covering the backstretch, stables, and former jockey housing, sit across the line in Berkeley.
That matters because the revenue at stake is not evenly split either. Even with the track dark since 2024, the property currently generates about $1.1 million a year in special revenue for the city of Albany and another $700,000 for the Albany Unified School District, tied to the site's assessed value while it remains privately owned and taxable. Separately, a city budget presentation to the Albany City Council estimated the city stands to lose roughly $800,000 a year in use-fee revenue alone if a tax-exempt buyer takes over, on top of whatever additional sales and property tax disappears. Those are two different ways of measuring the hit, from two different points in time, and they don't fully reconcile, but they point the same direction: Albany's budget is the one absorbing this, not Berkeley's.
None of that makes the park a bad idea. It does mean the tradeoff being weighed at Albany City Hall is heavier than the one being weighed in Berkeley, and residents on the Albany side have more reason to pay attention to how the city plans to backfill that revenue if the sale goes through.
What the Park Would Actually Connect
Set the budget math aside for a second and look at the map. If this closes, the site would fill the last real gap in a stretch of public shoreline that already runs from the foot of the Bay Bridge to the Richmond waterfront, tying together Albany Beach, the Albany Bulb, McLaughlin Eastshore State Park, Point Isabel Regional Shoreline, and views out toward Brooks Island Regional Preserve. It would also extend the San Francisco Bay Trail along a mile of frontage that's been fenced off for nearly a century.
Berkeley Mayor Adena Ishii described the appeal of the city's existing waterfront parks in terms of kayaking, kite flying, and sunset dining, a preview of the kind of shoreline life Berkeley residents already have access to a few miles south. Nothing at Golden Gate Fields is built out yet, and the East Bay Regional Park District has been clear that public engagement on what actually gets built won't start until after the land changes hands. What's on the table right now is access, not amenities.
How Local Residents Are Actually Following This
This isn't a story you have to wait on the newspaper for. Citizens for East Shore Parks, the nonprofit Robert Cheasty runs, has been hosting public forums as the deal develops. In July, the group held a session at the Albany Library's Edith Stone Room with speakers Amaya Williams-Segovia and Cheasty walking through shoreline restoration and habitat plans in detail most news coverage skips. The Albany Gazette newsletter tracks these updates alongside the rest of the city's monthly rhythm, and Albany Scanner covers the City Council side when budget impacts come up for a vote.
If you want the primary documents instead of secondhand summaries, the East Bay Regional Park District maintains a project page for the Golden Gate Fields acquisition with the funding breakdown and timeline in the district's own words.
What to Watch Next
Two dates matter more than anything else in this story right now. The first is the end of September, when Governor Newsom needs to sign the budget language that includes the $125 million allocation. The second is the funding deadline itself, now most consistently cited as early 2027, by which point the Trust for Public Land needs the full $175 million in hand or the option expires.
Nothing about the fence line changes between now and then. What changes is whether the paperwork behind it catches up.
Portia Pirnia has spent her career reading the fine print behind Berkeley and East Bay real estate, and she keeps a close eye on how local land use decisions like this one ripple out into daily life on both sides of a city line. If you're curious what a shift like this could mean for your own corner of Albany, Pirnia Homes is always glad to talk it through. Request a personalized home valuation to start the conversation.
