President Donald Trump’s termination of all six Presidio Trust board members marks a major disruption for one of San Francisco’s most successful public residential and commercial operations.
The Presidio Trust, created by Congress in 1996, manages and leases property across the 1,500-acre national park — a portfolio that has evolved into one of the city’s most stable and profitable mixed-use districts, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. The trust operates like a self-sustaining real estate enterprise, overseeing 1,400 residential units and 2.1 million square feet of commercial space leased to more than 300 tenants. In 2023, the trust hired Cushman & Wakefield to handle commercial leasing at the former military site.
With residential occupancy at 97 percent and commercial at 96 percent, the Presidio outperforms every other submarket in San Francisco, according to the Chronicle. Commercial tenants employ roughly 4,000 people, and the park’s leasing operations generated a record $182 million in revenue in 2024, contributing to $350 million in cumulative net income and $1.1 billion in total value since achieving financial independence in 2013.
Trump’s decision follows his 2025 executive order calling for the Presidio Trust’s elimination as part of a broader effort to reduce federal bureaucracy. The order labeled the trust — along with several other agencies — as examples of “waste and abuse.”
In response, the trust defended its financial model, emphasizing that it operates without taxpayer funding and leverages commercial, residential, hospitality and recreational assets to sustain park operations.
The board’s removal — including Chair Mark Buell, a developer, and Vice Chair Chuck Collins, former CEO of YMCA San Francisco — comes amid leadership turnover, with CEO Jean Fraser stepping down after guiding the trust through its most profitable period. The shake-up injects uncertainty into ongoing development plans, notably a 196-unit housing project on the former Letterman Hospital site, the first new ground-up residential construction in over two decades.
Despite political turbulence, the Presidio remains a rare federal real estate success story: a profitable, self-funded park that blends historic preservation with active leasing. Its future now hinges on whether new trustees will maintain its business approach or shift toward a more traditional federal management model.
According to the Chronicle, the trust has no word from the feds on the appointment of new board members.
– Joel Russell
Read more
Commercial
San Francisco
Presidio Trust names C&W to manage 2M sf commercial portfolio
Residential
San Francisco
Presidio Trust preps park’s first self-developed apartment complex
Commercial
San Francisco
Presidio Trust counters Trump’s attempted takedown