15 Jul Richmond Agrees to Plan to Make Point Molate a Park

After years of questions over the future of Point Molate, it may soon become parkland. (Courtesy of East Bay Regional Parks District)

By Samantha Kennedy

Gayle McLaughlin has considered the Point Molate question longer than anyone else on the Richmond City Council. In her first few months on the council in 2005, she was the sole vote against a study to move a Point Molate casino along and penned a commentary criticizing its viability. It’s a fight she’s seen through — it’s only taken 20 years.

McLaughlin and the rest of the Richmond City Council, barring an absent Vice Mayor Claudia Jimenez and council member Soheila Bana, voted 5-0 on Friday to approve a letter of intent that would turn the 81-acre site into parkland through a $40 million deal with the East Bay Regional Parks District. The district will also be responsible for Winehaven, which was at one time the largest winery in the world.

It’s a move that, she said in a press release, “sets the stage for an inspirational project.”

“Our time can now be focused on building something healthy and positive,” McLaughlin said at the meeting, “rather than having to fight back on projects that will bring harm with them.”

The $40 million will be paid largely with a $36 million state grant received by the EBRPD, which, according to McLaughlin, was made possible by state Sen. Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley. The California State Coastal Conservancy needs to authorize the distribution of those grant funds by Nov. 21.

“The acquisition of Point Molate, with its breathtaking views along San Francisco Bay,” Skinner said in an EBRPD press release Friday, “continues the East Bay’s decades-long mission to protect our bay shoreline.”

Before the proposed deal with EBRPD, the former naval fuel depot was the subject of yearslong legal battles, some of which will still be ongoing, and various projects that never came to be, including the Guidiville Rancheria of California’s proposed casino that McLaughlin initially fought against on the council and SunCal’s 1,450 home housing development.

SunCal’s attempt to buy Point Molate was stopped by the Richmond City Council in 2022, where it was then sold to the Guidiville Rancheria of California, a federally recognized Indian tribe, and its partner, Upstream Inc., for $400. SunCal said Richmond breached its contract by blocking the sale and sued, a battle that is ongoing.

Tom Butt, who supported the SunCal deal while serving as mayor in 2022, echoed some of the same concerns about the deal with EBRPD that he had when the council blocked the sale to SunCal — millions lost due to legal battles.

Butt also writes in his e-forum newsletter that there is no plan or funding to save Winehaven or operate Point Molate as a park.

The city, Parks District and Point Molate Futures, LLC, which itself is owned by the Guidiville Rancheria tribe, need to sign the letter of intent, which they jointly negotiated. It is expected to be “approved unanimously” at EBRPD’s Tuesday meeting, according to Colin Coffey, a district board member, who spoke during public comment, and will be put on the California State Coastal Conservancy’s agenda at the beginning of September.

If approved, proceeds from the sale would go to the tribe as the deal also includes the city giving up its “50% share of sale proceeds,” according to a staff report. The deal is expected to be complete by the end of the year.