Mission Rock

Since 2017, the Port has connected with tens of thousands of San Francisco residents through the Waterfront Resilience Program.

Public feedback collected about the Mission Rock subarea underscores the importance of protecting bird and wildlife habitat, promoting tourism, staying connected to the rest of the city with transportation options, and keeping utilities up and running.

Further feedback highlights additional community priorities, including opportunities to:

• Strengthen infrastructure and homes.
• Restore bird habitats.
• Continuous shoreline bicycle and pedestrian access along the entire waterfront.

Community feedback also helped identify places in the Mission Rock subarea that people love include:

• Kaiser Permanente Mission Bay, a nine-story, 200,000 square-foot facility that provides adult and pediatric care, as well as women’s health service and a pharmacy. 
• China Basin Park, a favorite on game days at the San Francisco Giants’ ballpark, with views of the stadium, picnic areas, and small baseball diamond. 
• The Mariposa Hunters Point Yacht Club, established in 1932 and dedicated to sailing and service to the greater San Francisco Bay Area community.  
• Service from the T-Third Muni Metro line, the city’s newest light rail line which began full-time service in 2007. It runs along Third Street and offers important north-south transportation. It provides access to the broader Muni Metro system with a connection near Embarcadero and Third Street. 

Click on the blue dots to learn more about each place.

The Port, in collaboration with City partners and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, is taking steps to better understand the different seismic and flood risk along its 7.5-mile bayside jurisdiction. Recent efforts include the:

• Multi-Hazard Risk Assessment
• Flood Resiliency Study (with U.S. Army Corps of Engineers)
• Sea Level Rise Vulnerability and Consequences Assessment (City of San Francisco)
• Islais Creek Adaptation Strategy (with SF Planning, SFMTA, and SFPUC)
• Initial Southern Waterfront Seismic Study
• Southern Waterfront Seismic Vulnerability Assessment

Scroll down to learn more about the seismic and flood risks in the Mission Rock subarea based on these findings.

Improving the seismic safety of the waterfront is a top priority of the Waterfront Resilience Program. See the  Seismic and Flood Risk 101  page to learn more about the history of earthquakes in the Bay Area and San Francisco’s commitment to improving seismic safety. 

Much of San Francisco’s central waterfront, including the Mission Rock subarea, was built on bay fill. These filled areas are more prone to seismic risk and impacts from large earthquakes. Keep scrolling to find out why.

Liquefaction is an unique phenomenon that happens when water-saturated sediment (like sand) temporarily loses strength and acts as a fluid. Imagine jumping on wet sand near the water at the beach until it turns soft and your feet sink in.

Liquefaction is caused by strong ground shaking during an earthquake and is greater in areas with sandy soils. As a result of liquefaction, buildings, roads and utility lines may lose their foundational support and the likelihood of significant damage increases. 

The map shows the Mission Rock subarea liquefaction risk rated as: Very High (dark red). This is because the subarea is built entirely on bay fill. 

The Mission Rock subarea was once part of Mission Bay, which originally covered approximately 500 acres of tidal marsh lagoon. It was turned into developable land in the mid-1800s as Mission Bay was slowly filled with construction and debris, changing the area into an industrial and shipbuilding district. After the 1906 earthquake, Mission Bay was further filled with debris from the earthquake, leaving the creek and resulting in the landforms we see today.

Liquefaction can also increase the risk of lateral spreading, which is when gently sloping ground starts to move downhill, causing cracks to open up. Lateral spreading is a seismic hazard that causes large areas of land to move, typically toward a body of water. This results in potentially large cracks and settlement at the ground surface, resembling a landslide but on relatively flat ground.

While the unique, pressing risk of lateral spreading that is associated with the Embarcadero Seawall is not present in Mission Rock, the subarea’s filled land makes the risks of liquefaction and ground shaking important to consider.  

The Mission Rock project that includes plans to provide new market-rate and affordable housing and mixed-use development is being built to current seismic safety standards. 

A preliminary seismic assessment for Mission Rock will be completed as part of the Initial Southern Waterfront Seismic Study, which will:

• Examine potential earthquake hazards and vulnerabilities along the waterfront between Mission Creek and Heron’s Head Park.
• Recommend areas for further analysis and produce a conceptual list of potential seismic mitigation measures.

Further information about the potential seismic hazards and vulnerability of Mission Rock will be included in the Southern Waterfront Seismic Vulnerability Assessment. This assessment will not be at the same level as the recently completed  Multi-Hazard Risk Assessment  (MHRA) under the Embarcadero Seawall Program. It will be used as part of the Port’s work to better understand the waterfront risks of the entire 7.5 miles in its jurisdiction.

Interested in learning more about what the Port is considering to improve seismic safety along the waterfront? Visit the  Measures Explorer  page to read about specific strategies for adapting San Francisco's waterfront in the event of earthquakes.

The Port and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers have partnered to study flood risk along San Francisco’s bayside shoreline. The Flood Resiliency Study is one of several federal, state, and local collaborations to help the Port increase resilience along the San Francisco shoreline.

Launched in Fall 2018, the approximately three- to five-year Flood Resiliency Study will identify vulnerabilities and identify recommended strategies to reduce current and future flood risks for consideration by the Assistant Secretary of the Army and the U.S. Congress for federal investment and implementation.

Scroll down to see the different risks and impacts for the Mission Rock when considering various scenarios for flooding and sea level rise. The flood maps presented here are from the  Adapting to Rising Tides Flood Explorer .

Overtopping is when water, usually in the form of storm surge or a wave, can reach over the shoreline and cause inland flooding. In general, overtopping of natural shorelines such as wetlands and beaches occurs at a lower flood elevation than overtopping of engineered shorelines such as seawalls, bulkheads, and wharves.

Red lines shown on the map indicate where overtopping begins to occur with 48 inches of sea level rise, or 7 of inches of sea level rise combined with a 100-year coastal flood event. In this situation:

• Flooding would impact the parking area for the San Francisco Giants’ ballpark, Pier 48, and Pier 50. 
• Most flooding within the Mission Rock subarea would come from a narrow pathway on Terry A. Francois Boulevard that would convey floodwaters from the  Mission Bay  subarea.

Sea level rise mitigation measures for the Mission Rock project, which includes plans for new market-rate and affordable housing, mixed-use development, and open space, will help protect these areas from flooding for years to come, but other parts of the subarea may remain vulnerable. 

Learn more below about how flooding or future sea level rise is likely to impact the Mission Rock subarea.

A tipping point is reached when the impacts of a flood go beyond a certain area, creating cascading consequences that can have citywide or regional ramifications. Damage is more than can be immediately addressed and affects critical assets and the community. The Port and the City use the concept of a tipping point to understand when planning for large-scale shoreline adaptation projects is necessary and which site-specific approaches to flood risk reduction may be overwhelmed. Understanding tipping points and how they vary along the waterfront can also help compare and prioritize projects along the waterfront. 

The Mission Rock subarea reaches a critical tipping point with 66 inches of sea level rise, or 25 inches of sea level rise combined with a 100-year coastal flood event. In this situation, overtopping would:

• Occur over a significant stretch of the Mission Creek, McCovey Cove, and bay shorelines. While this overtopping would inundate most of Mission Rock, it would not inundate the piers. 
• Cause flooding that combines with flooding from the  Mission Creek  and  Mission Bay  subareas.
• Block landside access to Piers 48 and 50. 
• Flood multiple transit routes, including the T-Third Muni Metro Line, which is track-based and cannot be rerouted.
• Flood Disaster Response assembly areas.

This map shows the flood impacts for the Mission Rock subarea when considering the City’s Sea Level Rise Vulnerability Zone.

The City’s Sea Level Rise Vulnerability Zone covers areas that will likely face future flooding and inundation in a 100-year coastal flood combined with 66 inches of sea level rise. This is a high-end scenario projected by the end of the century. Projects within the Zone must include sea level rise adaptation strategies to support the increased resilience of San Francisco’s communities, but they are not usually required to build that level of flood risk reduction now. Rather, they must demonstrate approaches to adapt to that flood level at a later time.

Under this scenario, the entire Mission Rock subarea shoreline would be overtopped and flooded if flood protection or adaptation actions are not implemented.

The Port and the City are also considering the H++ Scenario in the  State of California’s most recent Sea Level Rise Guidance (2018) . The H++ Scenario (shown in magenta) represents the area that could be inundated by 2100 if global ice sheets melt much faster than currently anticipated.

Interested in learning more about what the Port is considering to mitigate flooding and sea level rise? Visit the  Measures Explorer  page to read about specific strategies for adapting San Francisco's waterfront.

Given the potential impacts of earthquakes, flooding, and future sea level rise, what’s at stake in the Mission Rock subarea?

The following maps detail important disaster response resources, transportation services, maritime industries, public utilities, parks, and historical and cultural resources located in the Mission Rock subarea.

Community indicators, such as income level, mobility access, race, age, education level, language access, all play a part in how communities are impacted and able to prepare and respond to hazards like earthquakes and sea level rise. 

New waterfront development projects within the Mission Rock subarea will strengthen the central waterfront and provide greater public access, jobs, services, affordable housing, and mitigation measures that will significantly reduce flood and seismic risk in the Mission Rock project area. Forty percent of rental units in the new Mission Rock mixed-use neighborhood will be affordable to low- and moderate-income families. The project will also add eight acres of waterfront parks and open space, creating more spaces for residents from all over the city to enjoy the waterfront. 

Although the site will be raised by about 5.5 feet to plan for sea level rise, access to transit, roadways, utilities, and other nearby amenities will likely be impacted in a flood event.

Keep scrolling to learn more about how particular places and services in the Mission Rock subarea could be impacted by these risks.

In the event of a natural disaster, the Mission Rock subarea contains several facilities and services to support the City in its response. These include:

• An assembly area, where people can go for support or evacuation.
• An alternate Emergency Operations Center located at Pier 50.
• A tugboat facility at Pier 48 and Pier 50. 
• A large vessel berth at Pier 50
• Three suction connections for the Emergency Firefighting Water System, which can be quickly accessed to draw water directly from the bay and pump it into the fire water distribution system to be used at high-pressure at fire hydrants throughout the city.

Click on the yellow dots on the map to learn more about disaster response services in the Mission Rock subarea.

Public transit in the Mission Rock subarea includes two Muni bus stops as well as service from the T-Third Muni Metro Line, the city’s newest light rail line which began full-time service in 2007. It runs along Third Street and offers important north-south transportation links, including access to the broader Muni Metro system with a connection near Embarcadero and Third Street. 

The San Francisco Bay Trail also runs through the Mission Rock as a key route.

Major roadways include Third and Fourth street, which run through Mission Creek and help connect it to the rest of the city. They cross the Mission Creek Channel via the Lefty O’Doul / Third Street Bridge and Peter R. Maloney Fourth Street Bridge. lick the blue dots of the map to explore the transportation network options that help get people to, from, and around the subarea. 

Pier 50 is a cornerstone of the maritime facilities and operations for the Port of San Francisco. It houses the Port’s primary maintenance facilities and personnel, including more than 100 skilled craftspeople responsible for the preservation and improvement of the Port’s fishing harbors, ferry landings, public parks, cargo terminals and piers. 

Pier 50 has a large vessel berth facility. The Maritime Administration Ready Reserve (MARAD) provides a fleet of roll-on/roll-off ships, vessels designated to carry wheeled cargo such as cars, trucks, semi-trailer trucks, trailers, and railroad cars. They have ramps that enable vehicles to drive directly onboard. In an emergency, they can be mobilized and at sea within 96 hours, provide auxiliary power, and serve as emergency medical facilities.

Commercial tenants include Westar Marine Services, headquartered at Pier 50, which provides a range of services, from marine construction support, barge and tanker escorte, storage and delivery to vessels anchored in San Francisco Bay, and offshore towing and warehousing.

Click on blue dots to learn more about the maritime facilities and services in the Mission Rock subarea. 

Draft guiding principles of the Waterfront Resilience Program include creating opportunities to enhance and expand open space, increasing free public access to the waterfront, restoring habitats, and offering education.

The Mission Rock subarea offers excellent public access to the waterfront as well as open spaces. Popular community spots include China Basin Park, a favorite on game days at the San Francisco Giants’ ballpark, with views of the stadium, picnic areas, and small baseball diamond. 

The San Francisco Bay Trail, a 500-mile waterfront walking and cycling path around the entire bay that runs through all nine counties runs through the Mission Rock subarea. The subarea is also part of Blue Greenway, the City’s project to improve its southern portion of the San Francisco Bay Trail. Pier 50 ½ offers public access to yacht clubs and overnight guest docks. 

Click the green dots on the map to learn more about the public sites, open parks, and waterfront spaces in the Mission Rock subarea. 

San Francisco’s neighborhoods and businesses rely on buried and above ground infrastructure, such as wastewater and stormwater pipelines, power lines, and water distribution pipelines. 

Key utilities located and operated in the Mission Rock subarea include:

• Buried water supply and buried sewer pipes
• Overhead and buried electric power infrastructure 
• Buried natural gas supply line 
• Telecommunication cell sites (e.g. cells on top of buildings or small cell towers on street lights) are likely distributed throughout the subarea, but specific locations are unknown

Click the gray dots on the map to learn more about the city’s major utility infrastructure.

Historic Pier 48 is one of the largest and most flexible event spaces in San Francisco. The 200,000-square-foot industrial setting has open-air space and offers views of the Bay Bridge and San Francisco Giants’ ballpark. 

Pier 48 is part of the Embarcadero Historic District, which is listed in the National Register of Historic Places and named by the National Trust for Historic Preservation as one of the 11 Most Endangered Historic Places in the United States. 

Click on the orange dots to learn more about the historical and cultural sites found in and near the Mission Rock subarea. 

After assessing community priorities and specific seismic and flood risk in this subarea, the Port and its partners, including the City, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and other key stakeholders, are currently reviewing potential strategies for addressing these challenges and adapting the waterfront to reduce risks and meet the needs, priorities, and visions of the community over time. The Port has begun to identify measures, or specific strategies for adapting San Francisco's waterfront in the face of earthquakes, flooding, and future sea level rise. Visit the  Measures Explorer  to learn more.

A preliminary seismic assessment for the subareas between  Mission Creek  and  Heron’s Head  will be completed as part of the Initial Southern Waterfront Seismic Study. 

Thank you for reviewing the Mission Rock Waterfront Resilience Story Map. To view more detailed information about this subarea, click on the technical documents below.

•  Subarea Profile 
•  Flood Risk Profile 
•  Problems, Opportunities, Objectives, Constraints, and Considerations (POOCC) Fact Sheet