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Greenbelt Alliance In the News

November 7, 2005

Bay Meadows could be nearing finish line

CITY COUNCIL TO VOTE TONIGHT ON RAZING 71-YEAR-OLD TRACK

The oldest major track in California has played host to legendary thoroughbreds such as Seabiscuit and Citation, and famous jockeys such as Bill Shoemaker and Russell Baze. It's been this suburb's defining landmark, and a destination for generations of Bay Area racing fans.

But 71 years after its first race, Bay Meadows' owners say the track with its mile-long loop and pink art-deco style grandstand is a losing bet. Now they envision housing instead of horses.

"If Seabiscuit were here today, he wouldn't be racing at Bay Meadows," track spokesman Adam Alberti said.

Soon, there may be no racing at all.

The San Mateo City Council will take what appears to be a final vote tonight to tear down the track. In its place, developers and city leaders picture 83 acres of condominiums, offices, retail and parkland conveniently plopped right next to a Caltrain Baby Bullet stop.

Fueled by nostalgia and a desire to preserve the past, dozens of racing enthusiasts and track history buffs are resigned to the project's approval and will try to fight it at the ballot box in April.

But they face opposition from major forces that have traditionally fought development. The Sierra Club, the Greenbelt Alliance and other environmentalists want the dense housing on a public transit line to promote mass transit and preserve outlying green space. Housing advocates, labor unions and citizens opposed to gambling also favor the project.

Up to 1,500 condos could rise on the site where track historians say William P. Kyne introduced the Daily Double and the photo-finish camera to the racing world.

Track advocate Linda Schinkel sees it as another lost treasure. When Bay Meadows opened in 1934, she said, it turned sleepy San Mateo into the county's commercial hub and gave the town a unique identity.

"Bay Meadows is part of the social fabric here," said Schinkel, who is spearheading a petition drive to overturn the project if it's approved. She is also trying to get Bay Meadows named to the National Registry of Historic Places.

But even if it makes the historic registry, the city can ignore the designation and declare that tearing down the track is for the public good.

Deteriorating facility

What some see as a historic jewel, consultants who were hired to assess the track see as a deteriorating facility -- with cracks and outdated plumbing and electrical systems -- that lacks significance, partly because sections were rebuilt over the years.

"We're not out to tear something down just for the hell of it," Alberti said. "Bay Meadows isn't the facility it once was, and it never really was the facility people thought it was. It had some good horse races over the years, but it was never a Churchill Downs."

The Bay Meadows Land Co., an investor group that bought the racetrack in the mid-1990s, contends that the track attracts only about 600,000 visitors a year -- about half the attendance during its heyday of the 1940s and 1950s. Bay Meadows does make a profit, but it's largely on the strength of off-track betting, Alberti said. Live racing happens only 100 days each year.

The developers say they could keep racing at Bay Meadows if they could install slot machines or other gaming devices to boost profits. With more money, they could fatten horse race purses and attract high-profile thoroughbreds to race there.

But not only did state voters reject a measure last year that would have allowed slots at racetracks, San Mateo residents have resoundingly opposed any more gambling in their midst. And some have worried that if the housing development is rejected, the threat of more gambling would loom forever.

"Nobody wants more gaming," said San Mateo city planner Stephen Scott. "But if there's no redevelopment, you can never count out the possibility that a landless Indian tribe will come in here some day and want to propose a casino."

Indeed, Alberti said if the redevelopment is rejected, Bay Meadows owners might pursue more gaming there. In the meantime, they've started a hunt for a new location for the racetrack, if someday California allows gaming at racetracks. Bay Meadows Land Co. recently bought Hollywood Park, a Southern California track, with the same idea of trying to keep horse racing alive in California by adding other types of gambling.

For racing fans in the Bay Area, the loss of Bay Meadows would leave Golden Gate Fields in Albany as the only track in the region.

If Bay Meadows closes, off-track betting would move next door to the San Mateo County Expo Center.

That actually came as good news for bettors who say they'd love a more modern setting for their wagering.

"This place is really crummy," said Bob Martinez of Redwood City as he sat on a Formica chair in the dark, smoke-filled grandstand last week trying to pick winners for a race at Aqueduct. "They haven't put any improvements in here in years."

Even if the city council approves the redevelopment project, it could be years before the track is demolished, developers say.

Phases of change

Racing would continue while developers draft and win approval for specific plans. And the project would be built in phases over 10 to 15 years.

"You won't see that place suddenly disappear," Scott said. "It's just the middle of a very long process right now."

But for Schinkel and others who want to save the track, there isn't a good time for demolition.

"That track is there now," Wells said. "But some day we'll look at it, and all we'll be able to say is, that's where Bay Meadows used to be."

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Contact Renee Koury at rkoury@mercurynews.com or (650) 688-7598.

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