Potential Partners The Parks Conservancy’s business model and 32 years of park-based accomplishments are rooted in partnership and collaboration, and the Conservancy will bring this same collaborative approach to the Presidio Exchange. This approach has allowed many other admired public sites and programs, such as High Line in New York, to deliver a high volume of high-quality programs at relatively modest costs. Combining a world-class setting and flexible facility with the talents and audiences of strategic program partners will leverage resources, build creative talent, engage new visitors, and reinforce the PX values of co-creation and collaboration. Guiding criteria will ensure that the partner programs fit and extend the mission of the Presidio Exchange—and reach existing and new audiences. Each Presidio Exchange partner will: • Illuminate a theme, story, history, inspiration, or creative action that springs from the PX’s locale-based “Power of Place”—the setting, themes, or heritage of the Presidio, the national parks, and the Golden Gate itself. • Advance the strategic objectives of the Presidio Trust: to invite people to the Presidio and make it welcoming to all, to contribute to a better nation and world, and to preserve and sustain the Presidio. • Gain special appeal and creative power from the Presidio’s inspiring and world-class setting that it would not gain elsewhere. • Reach a specific audience, perhaps underrepresented at the Presidio, which is part of the local, national, and international constituency of the Presidio. The Presidio Exchange partners will advise on, collaborate on, and create programs that respond to those objectives. The Parks Conservancy has identified more than 30 organizations that have expressed an intention to partner with the PX (see partnership letters in the Appendix).
The Conservancy’s Record: Parks For All Forever To fully execute the vision for the Presidio Exchange, the Parks Conservancy will leverage its abilities to improve and create landscapes and iconic attractions, serve visitors from near and far, deliver programs that meaningfully engage people with places, secure long-term financial viability, and leave a lasting legacy. In becoming one of the largest and most effective nonprofits to support the National Park Service, the Conservancy has established an exemplary record of achievement in each area. None of this would be possible without the Conservancy’s public agency partners (the NPS and Presidio Trust), its 14,000 members, a passionate and committed Board of Trustees, and a robust community of philanthropic supporters.
Improving Landscapes, Creating Attractions • Transformed Crissy Field—formerly a derelict military site—into a 100-acre shoreline park through a $34.5 million restoration project completed in 2001. • Reinvigorated the visitor experience on Alcatraz Island— one of San Francisco’s top tourist attractions—through a new cellhouse audio tour, interpretive park store, accessibility accommodations, and restored historic gardens. • Enlivened the south plaza of the Golden Gate Bridge—San Francisco’s internationally recognized icon—through a $5.5 million effort to build new trails and overlooks, renovate the Round House, and establish a new Bridge Pavilion in 2012. • Revitalized Lands End through a $15 million project and community support and volunteerism—adding new trails and overlooks, restoring native habitat, and building a new Lands End Lookout visitor center. • Repurposed the facilities at Fort Baker, through a public/ private/nonprofit partnership that completed a $100 million renovation and restoration project to create the first national park lodge of the 21st century, Cavallo Point. • Attained unprecedented level of “green” design in facilities,
At the California Academy of Sciences, we explore, explain, and sustain the natural world. Our mission of stewardship and environmental education comes to life in national parks and protected places and over the years we have often collaborated with the Presidio and the Golden Gate National Parks. We can easily imagine potential partnership activities and programs as the Presidio Exchange comes to life. —GREG FARRINGTON, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, CALIFORNIA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
with the LEED Gold-certified Cavallo Point, and the Lands End Lookout and the interim Crissy Field Center attaining Platinum, the highest possible LEED status. • Restored Mori Point, a national park gem in San Mateo County, by marshaling community support for creating pond habitat and protecting endangered species while opening recreational opportunities. • Supported multi-phase restoration of the Redwood Creek Watershed in Marin County—from the slopes of Mount Tamalpais to the wetlands of Muir Beach. • Managed and executed restoration and construction projects across the Golden Gate National Parks, totaling over $100 million in capital improvements, on time and within budget parameters. • Garnered over 30 design awards for delivering innovative projects that fit within the environmental context and add value to the national park experience (see Appendix for listing of awards).
Serving Visitors • Helped serve more than 17 million visitors to the Golden Gate National Parks (Golden Gate National Recreation Area, Muir Woods National Monument, and Fort Point National Historic Site), in partnership with the Trust and NPS. • Staffed, managed, or supported six park visitor centers at the Presidio, the Marin Headlands, Lands End, Muir Woods, Fort Point, and Alcatraz.
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