COLUMN ONE : View From Presidio: Profits : San Francisco’s historic military post signals the future as it prepares to become the first national park conceived as a moneymaker. Will Gorbachev be a tenant?

In a salon at the top of the Transamerica pyramid, diplomats from five continents gathered over Chardonnay and prawns to hear a revolutionary marketing appeal.

The pitch: The U.S. government wants foreign countries to invest in turning one of this nation’s most historic military posts--the Presidio of San Francisco--into a global center for solving the world’s problems.

“We see a very special place in the United States to come together, think together and act together,” National Park Service official Brian O’Neill told more than a score of consular officials representing countries from dirt-poor Botswana to affluent Japan.

The highbrow soiree was one step in the selling of the Presidio, which has stood sentry over the Golden Gate for two centuries and is destined in 1994 to become the first U.S. national park conceived as a profit-making venture.

Its promoters say transferring the scenic piece of oceanfront real estate from the Army to the National Park Service will preserve 1,480 acres of rare native habitat, more than 450 historic buildings and breathtaking views while saving the taxpayers $45 million a year. To make it all work, the cash-poor park service has come up with a strategy not often associated with the national parks: free enterprise.

The innovative park would become San Francisco’s biggest landlord, renting out space in the old post’s buildings to foreign countries, nonprofit organizations and businesses. Former Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev is in the vanguard of those seeking a piece of the Presidio action. He has proposed leasing space for his Gorbachev Foundation--as well as living quarters--in the new park.

Since the National Park Service put out a call for ideas, at least 335 proposals have arrived. They range from construction of a bungee-jumping tower to creation of an international center on health and the environment. Universities and private firms offered detailed proposals for taking over the post’s medical facilities, while the Sierra Club and other nonprofit organizations proposed moving their headquarters to the Presidio.

In an era in which government agencies are increasingly strapped for cash, the Presidio will pave the way for a new generation of parks that will save themselves by forming partnerships with outside organizations, planners say.

“It’s really the prototype for parks of the future,” said Nan Stockholm, director of the Presidio Council, a panel of business leaders, scholars and artists that is advising the park service.

The Presidio--founded by Spain in 1776 three months before the United States declared its independence--possesses tremendous resources, not the least its setting.

At the foot of the Golden Gate Bridge, its high bluffs and tree-lined hills overlook the Pacific Ocean, San Francisco Bay and the Marin headlands. Within sight of downtown San Francisco’s skyscrapers, the post is one of the most peaceful settings in the city, with beaches, bayside trails and a forest of 100-year-old trees.

At the same time, the Presidio is a small city in itself, with more square footage in its buildings than in 11 Transamerica pyramids. The post boasts two hospitals, a state-of-the-art medical research center, two self-contained forts, vast office buildings, a historic airfield, old cavalry stables, housing for 6,000 people, dozens of warehouses, three chapels, two bowling alleys, a child-care center and a movie theater--as well as a cemetery, a golf course and a lake.

The Presidio also is home to one of the largest stands of native vegetation left in the Bay Area. Among the 200 varieties of plants are 10 rare species and one bush--a Raven’s manzanita--that is the only one of its type in the world.

“This is one of the most beautiful spots on God’s Earth and it’s beautiful because the Army has been here for so many years,” said Maj. Gen. Patrick H. Brady, the Presidio’s deputy commanding officer. “We, of course, have a very close feeling for this place and certainly hate to leave it.”

For the National Park Service, the challenge is to transform the Army enclave into a park of international stature, preserving its rich history and natural features while taking advantage of its special array of existing facilities.

Park planners envision an urban oasis that will be among the most heavily used and the most expensive to operate in the entire federal park system--yet will charge no entrance fee.

“It’s beyond anything the park service has ever done,” park service spokesman Howard Levitt said. “We recognize we have one chance to get it right. We hope the people of this country can say something really remarkable and unique happened here.”

In addition to financial backers, the government is searching for a central theme that would emphasize the Presidio’s history and position as an international crossroads as well as its natural charms.

A staging area for many wars but never the scene of combat, the Presidio was an integral part of the founding of the West and a destination for a parade of officers, explorers and writers who helped shape the nation.

In 1846, the Presidio was seized in the Bear Flag rebellion by Lt. John C. Fremont--the explorer who later ran for President--and a group of Americans who were seeking to break off California from Mexico. A week later, federal troops sailed into the bay and claimed the entire region for the United States, said post historian Bud Halsey.

During the Civil War, soldiers from the post helped protect California’s gold, which was important in financing the Union cause. Later, troops were sent out to subdue American Indians and to patrol the first national parks, including Yosemite.

In 1906, soldiers aided San Franciscans struck by the great earthquake and fire, setting up refugee camps on the grounds of the Presidio. In 1917, American soldiers were sent from the Presidio to Russia to fight the Bolsheviks and hold the trans-Siberian railway.

Gen. John Pershing was commander of the Presidio when he went off to fight Pancho Villa along the Mexican border. While he was gone, his house on the base burned, killing his wife and three daughters. Another famous commander was Gen. Douglas MacArthur, who directed the Pacific theater of World War II.

Throughout most of its history, the base has been open to civilians. A young Ansel Adams lived nearby and took some of his earliest photographs on the base. Other visitors over the years included frontiersman Kit Carson, authors Richard Henry Dana and Mark Twain and, as a young officer, Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman.

One of the Presidio’s most distinctive features is the forest of more than 400,000 pine, cypress and eucalyptus trees. Planted during the 1880s in straight military rows on the barren sand dunes and hilltops, the trees helped set the base apart from the growing city beside it.

Major W. A. Jones of the Army Corps of Engineers planned the forest to create the illusion that the Presidio was bigger than it actually was, and, as he wrote, to “make the contrast from the city seem as great as possible and indirectly accentuate the idea of the power of the government.”

Among the ideas favored by officials planning the new park are the establishment of an environmental United Nations, a world peace center, an institute for research on international health, a Pacific Rim trade center or a global Peace Corps center.

Maya Lin, designer of the Vietnam Veterans War Memorial and a member of the Presidio Council, suggested that the post’s historic military role could be broadened to address the environmental and social problems that threaten the world.

“Defense no longer has to be about a military aggressiveness,” said the New York artist and architect. “Defense can mean protecting the planet.”

What the park ultimately becomes will depend on the interest of outsiders--and the money they are willing to invest.

Seeking proposals and partners from around the globe, the National Park Service issued an unusual “Call for Interest” earlier this year. Planners hoped someone would come forward with a proposal so superb that it would give the park its new identity and, ultimately, international recognition.

“It will be a national park unlike any other,” the Call for Interest says. “With its historic buildings and stunning setting, the Presidio presents an extraordinary opportunity for educators, scientists, environmental organizations, community leaders and businesses from around the world to host programs of national and international distinction.”

One of the first to express an interest in setting up shop at the Presidio was Gorbachev. He would like office space for his foundation--which promotes democracy and global cooperation--and a place to stay when he comes to visit.

“It is wonderful and symbolic that this military base is being converted for the use of the people,” Gorbachev said during a recent tour of the Presidio.

Park officials, pleased to attract the attention of the former world leader, said his proposal was just the kind of response they were hoping for. “Conversion of this post is a perfect illustration of the swords to plowshares ideal,” said O’Neill, superintendent of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. “Organizations of the stature of the Gorbachev Foundation are exactly what we are seeking.”

Others have expressed interest as well. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency would like to use the Presidio to demonstrate new technology, conduct research or educate the public about environmental issues.

Surviving members of the Ohlone Indian tribe, who say their ancestors once lived on the Presidio, have laid claim to the entire base and called for establishment, at the very least, of an Indian museum.

And more than 170 years after Spain lost control of the post, Spanish Consul General Cesar Gonzalez Palacio said he hopes to win back a small chunk of land for a museum to commemorate his country’s founding of the Presidio.

Distribution of the detailed Call for Interest to more than 3,000 organizations worldwide is an unprecedented step for the National Park Service, which has come under fire for the way it has managed other parks, particularly Yosemite and Yellowstone National Parks.

“They’ve never used anything like this before,” said an enthusiastic Michael Alexander, a Sierra Club volunteer who has monitored the Presidio planning process. “They recognize this is an unusual place and that they’re going to have to take some unusual steps to make it work.”

Another unusual move was raising nearly $1 million in private donations to spend solely on the three-year planning process. Besides forming the Presidio Council and soliciting the group of diplomats, the park service has held public hearings in San Francisco to solicit ideas for the park.

“The park service has realized that this is an entirely different kind of thing than they have handled in the past,” said James Harvey, chairman of Transamerica and chairman of the Presidio Council. “So they have been very open and have encouraged input from outsiders.”

The Army spends more than $45 million to run the post--more than the cost of operating Yosemite, Yellowstone and Grand Canyon national parks combined. The park service figures it will cost $86 million to restore the post’s buildings and convert them to park uses.

But real estate experts advising the park service say that even with these tremendous costs the park can save taxpayers the Army’s annual expense and even make money.

Most costs could be passed on to tenants in exchange for initial reductions in rent, the advisers say. And rent from more than 5 million square feet of space could eventually give the park a net income of $5 million a year.

“By the year 2000, given the best estimates, the park should be able to break even or come out ahead,” consultant Glenn Isaacson said.

The park service expects to set up an umbrella nonprofit corporation to manage the park. All tenants would be required to serve some public purpose and follow guidelines that call for historic preservation, enhancement of the natural resources and improved public access.

The Presidio has half a dozen distinct districts and each one lends itself to different kinds of uses, park planners say.

Letterman Army Hospital, for example, offers a setting for a top-notch medical facility--and one of the biggest revenue sources for the park. Across the post, Ft. Winfield Scott, a turn-of-the-century fort and parade ground, could be transformed into a secluded conference or training center.

The central Main Post, with its parade grounds and dozens of buildings, could become a popular tourist destination with myriad cultural facilities, public exhibits, museums, offices of environmental organizations, restaurants and lodging all based around a “Presidio town center.”

During the late 1960s, San Francisco developers began to talk of someday taking control of the Presidio and building luxury homes. That prompted a powerful local congressman, Phil Burton, to write into law in 1972 that if the Army should ever abandon the post it would become a national park and be incorporated into the Golden Gate National Recreation Area.

“He saw the day coming and he was going to make sure it was not exploited by greedy developers,” said his brother, Assemblyman John Burton (D-San Francisco). “He knew goddamned well that it belonged to the people and it was not going to be $2-million houses.”

Phil Burton is buried in the Presidio cemetery, along with his wife, former congresswoman Sala Burton, in a plot overlooking San Francisco Bay.

The Army has until September, 1995, to abandon the Presidio, but has indicated it will pull out by September, 1994. Unlike other communities across the country where military bases are slated for closure, San Franciscans are enthusiastic about the Army’s departure and the transformation the post will undergo.

For the Army, it will be a sad day when soldiers fire the howitzer at Pershing Square for the final time, lowering the American flag as the echo of the cannon fades away across the Presidio.

“It’s not just a location on Earth,” Gen. Brady said. “It’s a location in the hearts and souls of a lot of soldiers.”

The Presidio in History

The past of San Francisco’s Presidio includes:

HISTORY: It is the nation’s oldest military post in continuous operation. Founded by Spain in 1776, it has also flown the flags of Mexico, the short-lived Bear Flag Republic and the U.S. Army.

TROOPS: Presidio troops protected California’s gold during the Civil War, provided disaster relief after the 1906 earthquake, fought the Bolsheviks in Russia in 1917 and provided soldiers to carry out the internment of Japanese-Americans in World War II.

COMMANDERS: Famed generals at the post have included Douglas MacArthur; his father, Arthur MacArthur; John Pershing, Joe Stillwell and Mark Clark.

FEATURES: A distinctive forest of 400,000 pine, cypress and eucalyptus trees, planted in the 1880s to make the post seem larger.

Presidio Future

The Presidio of San Francisco, the nation’s oldest Army base in continuous operation, will become a national park when the Army leaves in September, 1994. The National Park Service intends it to be the first park financed through free enterprise.