Residents Protest Astroturf Plan at Crocker Amazon Park

Residents from the Excelsior and surrounding neighborhoods are taking their fight against a controversial park renovation plan straight to Giants FanFest this Saturday, determined to stop what they call an environmental mistake before it gains momentum.

The group, Keep Crocker Real, is protesting San Francisco Recreation and Parks’ proposal to install 20 acres of artificial turf at Crocker Amazon Park as part of a $45 million renovation developed in partnership with the San Francisco Giants. The project would create five new baseball diamonds while removing 128 trees along the park’s pedestrian promenade and replacing its natural grass with synthetic surfaces.

The Giants and Rec and Park would split the $45 million cost evenly. Rec and Park’s share would draw from the city’s 2020 Health and Recovery bond, pending project approval. The renovation still needs sign-off from the Recreation and Park Commission and then the Board of Supervisors. If approved, construction could begin as early as 2027, with the new facility opening sometime in 2028.

Rec and Park spokesperson Tamara Barak Aparton has described the project as transforming the park “into one of the premier baseball and softball complexes in the Bay Area.” The plan includes new restrooms, a dog play area, picnic tables, batting cages, and lighting for the ball fields. One natural grass field would remain.

Keep Crocker Real argues the project’s costs, both environmental and community, far outweigh those benefits.

Bob Hall, one of the group’s organizers, pointed to what would be lost when the natural grass disappears. “You hear the birds chirping? That all goes away,” Hall told the San Francisco Chronicle. “Birds can’t survive on 20 acres of plastic. They are dependent on the bugs that live in the grass.”

That argument carries real ecological weight. The park sits at the base of McLaren Park, the city’s second-largest green space at 317 acres, and functions as part of a broader wildlife corridor connecting McLaren Park to San Bruno Mountain. Replacing natural grass with synthetic turf on this scale could disrupt movement patterns for birds, insects, and even bats that depend on the corridor.

The project does include a two-for-one tree replacement commitment, meaning 256 new trees would be planted to replace the 128 removed. But anyone who has watched a recently renovated San Francisco playground bake in the afternoon sun knows how little shade young trees provide. Newly planted trees won’t offer meaningful habitat or cover for years, if ever.

Hall sees the natural grass as offering something the artificial version simply cannot. “The thing about grass is you can have both human activity and wildlife,” he said. “This gives you the feel of the big open meadows in Golden Gate Park. There’s nothing like it.”

The park also contains Hummingbird Farm, a community-based agricultural space that neighbors have used and supported for years. Residents worry the broader renovation would fundamentally change the character of a park that has served working-class families in the Excelsior for generations.

The Excelsior is one of San Francisco’s most ethnically diverse neighborhoods, home to a large Latino and immigrant community with deep roots. Crocker Amazon is their park. And while new baseball diamonds sound like an unambiguous community benefit, residents pushing back on this plan are asking who exactly the renovation is designed to serve, and at what cost.

The project is currently in environmental review, which means this is precisely the moment for public pressure to matter. Keep Crocker Real is bringing that pressure to FanFest because that is where the Giants will be celebrating themselves in front of cameras and sponsors, and the group wants the team’s role in this plan to stay visible.

San Francisco has dozens of examples of parks and playgrounds that were renovated with good intentions and ended up feeling sterile, hot, and ecologically empty. Crocker Amazon, with its connection to one of the city’s great wild green spaces, deserves a harder look before the bulldozers arrive.

The environmental review process is still open. The commission vote hasn’t happened. Neighbors still have time to be heard.