San Francisco’s Ocean Beach Seawall Project Is Pushed Back to a Late 2029 Start

The plan to tear out the last stretch of the Great Highway and bury a seawall under a new sand dune has slipped again. The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission now says major construction on the Ocean Beach Climate Change Adaptation Project will not start until late 2029, and that it will run about four years after that. The Frisc reported the new date on September 2; the agency has since posted it on its project page.

The earlier target was a start in late 2023 or early 2024 and a finish by the end of 2027. The Ocean Beach Master Plan that set this in motion came out in 2012.

What the project is

The stretch in question is the Great Highway Extension, the piece of road south of Sloat Boulevard that runs past the San Francisco Zoo to Skyline Boulevard. It is less than a mile long. Part of it fell into the ocean after the storms of winter 2009-10, and it now carries northbound traffic only.

What sits under it matters more than the road. A concrete wastewater tunnel completed in 1993 runs beneath the extension, parallel to the shore, connecting to a pump station at the west end of Sloat and to the treatment plant next to the zoo. Erosion moving inland threatens all of it.

The SFPUC plan removes the extension entirely, buries a concrete seawall roughly 3,200 feet long under a new dune planted with native species, and puts a walking and biking trail on top where the roadway is now. It also adds a beach access stairway, restrooms, and ADA access improvements along Ocean Beach north of Sloat, and keeps replacing sand on the beach. The 35-space parking lot at Great Highway and Sloat is to be removed.

Why the date moved

SFPUC spokeswoman Nancy Crowley gave The Frisc three reasons. The California Coastal Commission asked for design changes, and the project team is working through seven of them, including relocating the beach-access stairs and redesigning a restroom at the south end of the trail. The agency also identified a pipe in the same area, separate from the wastewater tunnel, that needs work, and decided to do it at the same time rather than dig the area up twice. The third is zoo access: northbound drivers on the extension can currently turn into the zoo parking lot, and closing the road for good means routing everything through the Sloat Boulevard entrance, which is built for entering only.

An earlier phase of traffic and safety work at the Sloat Boulevard and Great Highway intersection and the zoo parking lot comes first. The SFPUC says that phase is being coordinated with the zoo.

What it means for getting to the beach

During construction, the SFPUC expects to close parts of South Ocean Beach for roughly six months a year, in each of the four years. Walking along the beach from the waterline would still be allowed, with access restricted to the nearshore area outside the work zones.

Until then the shoreline there is held by sandbags and riprap. Forecasters are watching a developing El Nino, and California tides this year have already run higher than forecast, which is the combination that has taken chunks of this road before.

The rest of the road

North of Sloat, the Upper Great Highway is now Sunset Dunes, the car-free park created by Proposition K in November 2024. A separate measure on the November 2026 ballot, Proposition G, would reopen that section to cars on weekdays. Per The Frisc, the outcome would not change the closure of the Extension, which the Board of Supervisors voted to make permanent in May 2024.

For what else is happening in the city this month, see our September 2026 guide.