Pier 45

Pier 45 is the pier the city kept trying to turn into something else. A 1974 report of the mayor's committee on Fisherman's Wharf describes the fishing boat basin lying between two large pier structures — Hyde Street to the west and Pier 45 to the east — and notes that neither was then used for maritime purposes. The plans that followed were frankly transactional: the amendments proposed by the Fisherman's Wharf Action Plan would have allowed a mixed use, predominantly residential development on Pier 45, and a 1987 Port staff report explains why — hotel and mixed-use development on the pier was to finance the fishing development across the water, until the State Lands Commission informed the Port in 1984 that residential use was not permissible. The Port went on soliciting anyway, receiving four hotel proposals in January 1987, and was still negotiating over the property in closed session in 2000. What was actually built there is the fishing infrastructure: the 1996 environmental report for the Hyde Street Fishing Harbour and Pier 45 Sheds A and C runs to a draft, a summary of comments and responses, and a final volume certified by the Planning Commission, and the 1992 waterfront plan lists Pier 28 as a temporary fish handling area only until the Pier 45 project was complete — while designating the pier itself for historic ships, as the berth of the submarine Pampanito. Three contracts name the pier, together worth $2.81 million paid: $2,526,330.65 to Silverado Contractors, $178,591.50 to Hollins Consulting and $109,565.90 to SCA Environmental.