Port of San Francisco planning to demolish dry docks before they sink due to deterioration

By John Ramos

The addition of Oracle Park, the Chase Center, and the Mission Bay biomedical complex has completely transformed the formerly industrial San Francisco waterfront. And officials are racing to demolish the two surviving dry docks before they end up at the bottom of the bay.

But the effort to remove the massive structures will carry an equally massive price tag.

At 900 feet long, “Dry Dock 2” is a structure second only to the Salesforce Tower in size. Once the largest dry dock on the West Coast, it was big enough to float full-size cruise ships up and out of the water for repair. But it, and its smaller companion, “Eureka Dry Dock,” have been shut down since 2017. And they’re not coming back.

“No. The expectation is that these dry docks are not going to be used again,” said Eric Young, Communications Director for the Port of San Francisco. “These are dry docks that haven’t been used for many years, and because of the water and weather conditions, they do tend to erode over time.”

The Port of San Francisco looked for a buyer but got no takers. And then, in January, Port officials appeared at City Hall to say their rusting white elephant had turned into an emergency situation.

“In November of 2025, San Francisco was hit with a significant storm, and Dry Dock 2 began taking on water … beginning to sink,” said the Port’s Deputy Director of Finance Meghan Wallace in her presentation.

“This is just some more imagery of the deterioration of Dry Dock 2, how it’s taking on water and how the Port has begun to run pumps into it,” she said, showing pictures of water pouring into a gaping hole in the side of the structure.

Dry Dock 2 has since been patched up and stabilized, but it will never be operational again. So, now the plan is to demolish it, along with Eureka. But the cost of doing that is $61.2 million.

 It’s not the first time storms have caused trouble for the dry docks. In 2002, a storm cut Dry Dock 1 adrift, sending it floating out into the bay where it bumped up against Yerba Buena Island. Luckily, it didn’t sink and could be hauled away and dismantled.  

“It’s not good when something that big is moving uncontrolled across the Bay,” said Young.

But the bigger concern for Dry Dock 2 is that it could sink, which would make a salvage operation infinitely more difficult — and expensive. One estimate is that it would triple the cost of removal.

“So, these are massive structures, and we certainly don’t want them to go into the bottom of the bay,” Young said.

But he stressed that the money to remove the docks will come from the Port, not the City. And It’s already been budgeted. The Port is doing well financially these days, primarily because they’re not really in the shipping business anymore.  

Their main function now is leasing real estate on the waterfront, and that business is booming. In fact, while the removal of the dry docks may be a historical loss, Young said the Port is excited about the opportunity to reimagine what could be done with the old shipyard properties.

“The waterfront has changed dramatically, right?  Even over the last 10-15 years,” Young said. “And so, this area will certainly factor into that and the conversations about what that area might become.”

The hope is that they can find a company to begin scrapping the old dry dock sometime in 2027. And they’ll be crossing their fingers that another big storm doesn’t come along to sink that plan.