Bay FC, the Bay Area’s National Women’s Soccer League franchise, has signed a letter of intent to build an 8½-acre training facility on Treasure Island, a major commitment that will expand the island’s long-standing role as a center of sports and recreation.
The training facility deal, which will be announced during a news conference Tuesday, will include a 20,000-square-foot clubhouse and three practice fields. Bay FC plans to break ground on the privately financed project in 2025 and begin operating out of the facility in its 2027 season. The long-term lease must be approved by Treasure Island Development Authority and the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.
“The training facility will be the heart and soul of the sporting side of Bay FC,” said franchise CEO Brady Stewart. “It will be where our players come and train, recover, engage with our coaching staff, do their workouts. It’ll be open to them 24/7, 365 days a year.”
The team currently practices at San Jose State University and plays its games at PayPal Park in San Jose, which it shares with the San Jose Earthquakes. The team, which is currently playing its first season, was co-founded by U.S. Women’s National Team veterans Brandi Chastain, Leslie Osborne, Danielle Slaton and Aly Wagner, along with the investment firm Sixth Street.
The training facility will be located in the center of the island, an area currently being used for soil storage. Overall, the redevelopment will include 40 acres of sports fields, including a home for the San Francisco Glens minor-league soccer club and 90 other teams and more than 1,100 players. The island is also home to San Francisco Little League baseball fields, the padel and pickleball club Bay Padel and fields owned by the United States Gaelic Athletic Association.
The deal comes as Bay FC is in the early stages of looking at potential sites for a stadium.
Stewart said the team is happy playing at PayPal Park but eventually wants its own stadium. She said the franchise would consider sites across the Bay Area.
“We love playing at PayPal Park, it’s a beautiful stadium, there is not a bad seat in the house,” Stewart said. “Over time we want to build our own stadium, and we are just at the very beginning of understanding that journey.”
San Francisco Office of Economic and Workforce Development Director Anne Taupier said the city is hoping the team will locate the stadium in San Francisco, an option made more enticing by the fact that the training facility will be on Treasure Island.
“We hope they will want to locate their stadium as close to their practice facilities as possible,” said Taupier. “San Francisco wants to put its best foot forward as a location for that. That would be a win for us.”
Leigh Lutenski, deputy director for development for the San Francisco Office of Economic and Workforce Development, said Bay FC looked at sites throughout the city, but that Treasure Island was “a really great fit because there is a whole section of the island dedicated to sports fields and facilities.”
“Eight acres is hard to come by in San Francisco,” she said. “They were really focused on finding a place where they would want to be most days of the year and where their players, who come from all over the world, would want to live near.”
The deal comes as the development of Treasure Island — and the adjacent Yerba Buena Island — is speeding up, transitioning from an urban planning concept decades in the making to an actual new neighborhood with apartments to rent and condos to buy. Some 1,000 housing units are either completed or under construction and another 900 are planned as part of the first phase of development. Altogether, 8,000 units are planned for the island.
The news conference for the Bay FC announcement was held at the 250-unit Isle House, Treasure Island’s first high-rise, which opens this month.
“We have been very focused on keeping the momentum going on Treasure Island, and the team is going to generate a lot of excitement and activity,” Lutenski said.
In a statement, Mayor London Breed said the deal would make Treasure Island “a new soccer destination that will bring together our professional players and community from across the Bay Area.”
“Bay FC is bringing a whole new level of excitement not just to soccer in the Bay Area, but to women’s sports,” she said.
Chris Meany, who heads up Treasure Island Community Development, said he was “thrilled” at the Bay FC deal and said the team’s presence will be “an economic catalyst that will drive even more interest in Treasure Island.”
“All great neighborhoods need exciting attractions for residents, businesses and visitors alike, and it doesn’t get more exciting than Bay FC,” he said. “This announcement reflects the incredible momentum we’ve built here in San Francisco’s newest neighborhood.”
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