By Sam Whiting, Reporter July 16, 2025 - San Francisco Chronicle
When Presidio Tunnel Tops opened in San Francisco on July 17, 2022, Presidio Trust CEO Jean Fraser stood at the veterans Overlook and felt the pull of westward expansion to the flat parking lot below, which was at bay level and out of the wind.
Exactly three years later, that pull will be realized when Outpost Meadow opens to the public Thursday the third anniversary of the wildly successful Tunnel Tops, a 14-acre public park built atop the Presidio Parkway. The 1.5-acre annex was made a reality thanks to a $12 million grant from the California Natural Resources Agency.
“This is the last pearl on the string,” said Fraser, after passing through a locked Cyclone fence to walk the circumference of the new addition with a reporter last week. “It’s the final connection.”
Outpost Meadow is specifically a connection to the Outpost, a fantastical nature playground at Tunnel Tops that had 500,000 visits last year alone.
The concept for Outpost Meadow is that birthday parties and picnics can naturally spread out and not have to climb the steps to the picnic areas at Tunnel Tops. The paved pathway extends seamlessly from the Outpost to Outpost Meadow, which has reclaimed half of the parking lot once reserved for the Sports Basement, a Presidio tenant that occupies the former post commissary.
From the vantage of the Overlook, on the bluff above it, the Meadow looks like it has been there all along — and in one sense, it has. It is part of the original park design by landscape architect firm Field Operations and was intended to be built out with the original park.
But Fraser took it off the plans when the COVID-19 pandemic shutdown hit in the middle of construction. With the budget for Tunnel Tops itself ballooning to $118 million, most of it privately raised by the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy, that was the end of Outpost Meadow — until the state provided funds through its Outdoors for All initiative to bring parks closer to the urban masses.
“We knew we wanted to do this, but the price tag made it too ambitious,” Fraser said. “The design was ready to go when the state grant came through.”
Wildly popular S.F. park is opening a major family-friendly expansion this week
Greg
Quick and Dirty
When Presidio Tunnel Tops opened in San Francisco on July 17, 2022, Presidio Trust CEO Jean Fraser stood at the veterans Overlook and felt the pull of westward expansion to the flat parking lot below, which was at bay level and out of the wind.
Exactly three years later, that pull will be realized when Outpost Meadow opens to the public Thursday the third anniversary of the wildly successful Tunnel Tops, a 14-acre public park built atop the Presidio Parkway. The 1.5-acre annex was made a reality thanks to a $12 million grant from the California Natural Resources Agency.
“This is the last pearl on the string,” said Fraser, after passing through a locked Cyclone fence to walk the circumference of the new addition with a reporter last week. “It’s the final connection.”
Advertisement
Article continues below this ad
Outpost Meadow is specifically a connection to the Outpost, a fantastical nature playground at Tunnel Tops that had 500,000 visits last year alone.
The concept for Outpost Meadow is that birthday parties and picnics can naturally spread out and not have to climb the steps to the picnic areas at Tunnel Tops. The paved pathway extends seamlessly from the Outpost to Outpost Meadow, which has reclaimed half of the parking lot once reserved for the Sports Basement, a Presidio tenant that occupies the former post commissary.
From the vantage of the Overlook, on the bluff above it, the Meadow looks like it has been there all along — and in one sense, it has. It is part of the original park design by landscape architect firm Field Operations and was intended to be built out with the original park.
But Fraser took it off the plans when the COVID-19 pandemic shutdown hit in the middle of construction. With the budget for Tunnel Tops itself ballooning to $118 million, most of it privately raised by the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy, that was the end of Outpost Meadow — until the state provided funds through its Outdoors for All initiative to bring parks closer to the urban masses.
“We knew we wanted to do this, but the price tag made it too ambitious,” Fraser said. “The design was ready to go when the state grant came through.”
Advertisement
Article continues below this ad
The three-year delay allowed the Presidio Trust to talk to community groups and survey users of Tunnel Tops, which has attracted 5 million visits since it opened. At the top of their wish list: More tables, both reservable and first-come, first-served.
Currently on busy days, the reservable tables at Picnic Place at the top of the tunnel are “perpetually sold out,” Fraser said, at a fee of $130 per day on weekdays and $170 on weekends.
Outpost Meadow will significantly expand those options, offering 19 sturdy tables of thick-cut Monterey Cypress and Douglas Fir in three large picnic areas with barbecue pits around a central green. Two of the three pods will be reservable starting in October, at a price to be determined. The third pod will be up for grabs.
Survey responders also asked for more shade. Some of the picnic areas will be outfitted with umbrellas, though they will have to withstand the perpetual fog that blows in through the Golden Gate and can turn the strongest of umbrellas inside out.
“I’m hopeful the umbrellas will last in the wind,” Fraser said.
Responders also wanted a flat space where they can kick a soccer ball around, and were obliged with a flat oval of fresh, rolled-out sod. There is also sod on Tunnel Tops, but by Fraser’s measure, you can never have enough of it in an urban environment.
“I brought up my kids in the city,” she said, “and I’ll never forget the first time my daughter first put her feet on natural grass. It was like, ‘What is this weird stuff?’”
The grass will be irrigated by well water, thanks to Lobos Creek, the last free flowing waterway in the city, which reaches its terminus in the Presidio. The grass will also serve as flood control. On the old parking lot, rainwater pooled with no place to go. But the new lawn and surrounding tanbark, dotted with 23,000 native shrubs and trees, have drainage underneath.
“It’s all permeable,” said Travis Beck, chief park officer. “The water will go straight down.”
The parking lot that remains in front of Sports Basement has been reduced by half and is open to anyone, by public meter. Outpost Meadow is also serviced by the 30-Stockton Muni bus, which has been extended to a new terminus behind the Sports Basement. There are new Muni stops in both directions on Old Mason Street, which goes by the new park, to deposit and pick up passengers as soon as the fence comes down Thursday.
It will offer a new vantage point for people like Mikhiel and Samantha Tareen of North Beach, who were introducing their 10-day-old daughter, Simone, to their favorite park last week.
“It’s where we bring people who are visiting,” said Mikhiel, originally from Portland, Ore. “You get the closest and most unobstructed view of the city from here.”
The Tareens, and their dog Stanley, are Tunnel Tops regulars, but when standing on the Overlook they could not tell where the Outpost ended and Outpost Meadow began.
“I didn’t know that was a new thing,” Mikhiel said. “We haven’t had an issue with space here, but I like having more of it.”