San Francisco's Treasure Island Redevelopment Authority is beginning to assess the costs of making the man-made island more livable, including redeveloping a decommissioned naval base and creating farmland.
Once a total cost is determined, the agency will discuss financing options with Public Financial Management, the city's financial adviser, in the coming months.
The island was created to host a World Fair in the late 1930s and then became home to a U.S. Navy base from before World War II until the 1990s. It sits in San Francisco Bay and has access to the city and the East Bay shore via the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge.
"There's going to be a myriad of revenue sources for the project, including land sales, public financings and Mello-Roos [funding]," said Jack Sylvan, project manager of Treasure Island. "We don't know how much money we'll be able to access from those sources. The total cost of the project is still unknown."
Sylvan explained that the Redevelopment Authority has retained PFM on a contract, but the firm has yet to actively advise on financing options for the island.
"What has happened so far is that the land use plan has evolved fairly significantly over the fall, and we're now going through the exercise of putting costs into a financial analysis, and once we've gotten through that we'll be able to think about financing," Sylvan said.
The project will include expanded transportation to and from the island on two ferry routes: one from San Francisco and another from a yet-to-be determined site on the East Bay.
While the bridge already connects Treasure Island to the mainland, future plans call for limiting vehicles on the island to bicycles, which would be publicly available through a rental service that would also generate revenue.
