After playing in Oakland for nearly 50 years, the Golden State Warriors announced plans to move back across the Bay to San Francisco, where they originally started as the San Francisco Warriors.
In 1962, the Warriors franchise relocated to the San Francisco Bay Area after spending nearly twenty years in its founding city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Without an official arena, the Warriors played most of their home games at the Cow Palace in San Francisco until 1964, when they moved to what is now known as the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium. To secure a more permanent facility, the Warriors officially moved to the Oracle Arena in Oakland in 1971 and changed their name from the San Francisco Warriors to the Golden State Warriors.
The Piers 30-32 location along the waterfront has such a rich history. Pier 30-32 was built in 1912-1913 as the first pair of piers in San Francisco.
It was the first with up to date freight handling services consisting of traveling cranes, telphers and shiptowers. A distinctive bulkhead building with two towers linked its parallelpiers. To accommodate even larger ships, the two piers were lengthened in 1926 and in 1952 they were joined by a connecting wharf to accommodate large vehicles and trucks.
Tragically, on May 9th, 1984, a 5-alarm fire destroyed the historic pier sheds.
Over the years, there were several attempts to develop the piers under the voter supported Waterfront Land Use Plan (WLUP). The most recent effort occurred in 2006 when a plan was approved on Piers 30-32 called the Bryant Street Pier Project; which included an international cruise ship terminal with mixed use development. The project was not implemented because the costs of required pier repairs and seismic improvements proved to be higher than anticipated, making the project economically infeasible. Piers 30-32 is used as parking whenever not in use for a special event.
