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(KRON) – After about a decade in the making, the long-awaited India Basin Waterfront Park at 900 Innes in Bay View-Hunters Point had its grand opening on Saturday. 

This park will be combined with the existing India Basin Shoreline Park area, creating one larger 10-acre waterfront park. Park officials claim the project will also close a “critical gap” in the San Francisco Bay Trail. 

Attendees of the park’s grand opening enjoyed free food from the park’s new “Food Pavilion.” The pavilion will feature local food vendors and offer a variety of culinary workshops, ranging from wine and cheese pairings to food fermentation. 

People also had free access to environmental education activities and row boats from Rocking The Boat, a nonprofit that has been teaching young people and community members to build boats, row, sail, and restore the waterfront for over 25 years. 

The non-profit was initially started in the South Bronx, a neighborhood surrounded by water but “with no previous access to it,” said the non-profit’s founder, Adam Green.

“We are honored to be basing the first replication of our nationally-recognized model to India Basin Waterfront Park in Bayview-Hunters Point, with its many geographic and socio-economic parallels to Hunts Point,” Green said.  

The Ruth Williams Opera House curated music for the event’s opening day, setting the tone for the free art activities hosted by artists from the park’s new Artist-in-Residence program in collaboration with The San Francisco Arts Commission. 

Despite being a waterfront park, 900 Innes was originally a rehabilitated shipwright’s cottage dating back to the 1870s. Efforts were made to restore the property until the abandoned house endured a roof fire in 2010, which led the city of San Francisco to purchase the Innes property in 2014. 

For the first time in generations, Bayview-Hunter’s Point residents will now have access to a waterfront that was once a former brownfield.

San Francisco Mayor London Breed is dubbing the park’s opening a “big step in creating equity when it comes to thriving neighborhoods in San Francisco… All San Franciscans deserve a beautiful, safe place to gather with friends and family, exercise and for kids to play.”

Construction on the waterfront park project started in 2021. According to park officials, the entire renovation of India Basin Shoreline Park will be completed in 2025. More details can be found here.

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