7 Best Sights in SoMa, Mission Bay, and Dogpatch, San Francisco

The National Basketball Association's Golden State Warriors are the headliners of this spectacular arena and the city's marquee indoor entertainment complex. In just six years since it opened, Chase Center has already become a San Francisco institution for more than just sports. It is also a major stop for entertainers like Jerry Seinfeld, Madonna, and Katy Perry. Don't miss a walk around the beautiful grounds; a highlight is Olafur Eliasson's stunning Seeing Spheres installation on the bay side of the arena. Across the street from that outdoor art is Bayfront Park, unveiled in 2024 after years of construction. At just over 5 acres, it features excellent views from its grassy hills, basketball courts, and steel design elements made from the old Bay Bridge eastern span.

The area around Chase Center is called Thrive City, a nod to sponsor Kaiser Permanente's (a local health-care provider) slogan. Some locals call it "Contrived City" since it's a glossy made-up neighborhood within a neighborhood. Regardless of opinions on the naming, the focal point of Thrive City is the impressive plaza on the Third Street side of Chase Center. It's where fans from all over the Bay Area gather to celebrate Warriors wins. There is a popular bleacher-like seating amphitheater facing the plaza that includes a statue of the late former mayor Ed Lee, who helped bring the Warriors from Oakland to San Francisco in the 2010s. The other main highlight of Thrive City is dining. A few popular San Francisco establishments have restaurant or bar concepts here, including Gott's Roadside, Dumpling Time, Harmonic Brewing, Che Fico, Señor Sisig, and Burma Love, plus GluGlu wine bar by Dogpatch's Ungrafted restaurant and the massive Splash Sports Bar from the Pacific Cocktail Haven team.

Opened in 1935, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art was the first museum on the West Coast dedicated to modern and contemporary art, and after a three-year expansion designed by Snøhetta, it emerged in 2016 as one of the largest modern art museums in the country and the revitalized anchor of the Yerba Buena arts district. With gallery space over seven floors, the museum displays only a portion of its more than 33,000-work collection and has numerous temporary exhibits. Allow at least two hours here; ambitious art fans could spend a full day. The museum’s holdings include art from the Doris and Donald Fisher Collection, one of the world's greatest private collections of modern and contemporary art. Highlights include deep collections of works by German abstract expressionist Gerhard Richter and American painter Ellsworth Kelly and an Agnes Martin gallery. The third floor is dedicated to photography. Also look for seminal works by Diego Rivera, Alexander Calder, Matisse, and Picasso. Don’t miss the third-floor sculpture terrace or the fifth floor's eye-catching "One-way colour tunnel" by Olafur Eliasson under the museum's signature oculus. Around 45,000 square feet of the museum is free to the public and contains a handful of works. Save time by reserving timed tickets online.

Two blocks encompass the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, the Metreon (a busy, nondescript urban shopping mall), and Moscone Convention Center, but the gardens themselves are the everyday draw. Office workers and convention-goers escape to the green swath of the Great Lawn, the focal point of which is the memorial to Martin Luther King Jr. Powerful streams of water surge over large, jagged stone columns, mirroring the enduring force of King's words, which are carved on the stone walls and on glass blocks behind the waterfall. Moscone North is behind the memorial, and an overhead walkway leads to Moscone South and its rooftop attractions.

The gardens are liveliest during the week and during the Yerba Buena Gardens Festival, from May through October (ybgfestival.org), with free performances.

Atop the Moscone Center perch a few lures for kids. The historic 1906 Looff carousel ( $5; $3 with museum admission) twirls daily 10–5. The carousel is attached to the Children's Creativity Museum ( creativity.org), an interactive arts-and-technology center ( $20) geared to children ages 3–12. Outside in the children's garden, kids adore the slides, including a 25-foot tube slide, at the play circle. Also part of the complex are an ice-skating rink and a bowling alley.

A former industrial part of the bay waterfront was beautifully redesigned from a shipbuilding area into a city park with two lawn areas; plenty of space for dogs, joggers, and picnickers; splendid East Bay and Bay Bridge views; and, yes, a small beach. However, it's not recommended to actually swim in the area—it's best to kayak or just dip your toes in the water. This is an urban renewal triumph enjoyed by all ages.

A newly built micro neighborhood within the greater Mission Bay neighborhood, this 28-acre waterfront development across McCovey Cove from Oracle Park is a public-private development between the Giants, the Port of San Francisco, and Tishman Speyer (a real-estate corporation). Its crowning glory, China Basin Park, was unveiled in 2024 and features a beach-like area with Adirondack chairs and a Willie McCovey statue, plus plenty of green space for dogs and humans to enjoy. The ballpark and skyline views throughout the park are sensational.

Further inland within the small set of high-rise buildings, the credit card company Visa now has its global headquarters. Several popular San Francisco restaurants, including Trick Dog, Flour + Water Pizzeria, and Che Fico, are expected to open-dining concepts in the "neighborhood" in 2025.

Right at home in this once-industrial neighborhood now bursting with creative energy, this small museum mounts temporary art and design exhibitions, rather than keeping a permanent collection. The focus might be rugs, metalwork, furniture, or jewelry, though it might also be sustainable architecture, the connection of scent and objects, or very on-trend subjects like robots. The beautifully curated shop is perfect for unique souvenirs and imagination-spurring items for the home office.

Dedicated to the influence that people of African descent have had in places all over the world, MoAD focuses on temporary exhibits in its four galleries over three floors. With floor-to-ceiling windows onto Mission Street, the museum fits perfectly into the cultural scene of Yerba Buena and is well worth a 30-minute foray. Most striking is its front window centerpiece: a three-story mosaic, made from thousands of photographs, that forms the image of a young girl's face. Walk up the stairs inside the museum to view the mosaic photographs up close—Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali are there, along with everyday folks—but the best view is from across Mission Street.