Walk down North Court Street on a Saturday in August and the marina still looks the way it has for most of our lifetimes. The fishing pier out over the Carquinez Strait. The bocce courts behind the yacht club. A handful of oil tankers moving through the Strait in the middle distance. What you might not know, if you have not been reading city agendas, is that this summer is different. Martinez is one year into a 24-month clock that will decide what the waterfront looks like for the next generation, and the version you can walk through today has a shelf life.
That is the frame worth carrying into the rest of the season. Not "here are ten fun things." A specific in-between moment, with a specific end date.
The last low-key summer at the marina
At the December 17th Regular City Council meeting, the Martinez City Council unanimously approved an Exclusive Negotiating Agreement with Tucker Sadler Architects, marking an important milestone toward revitalization of the Martinez Waterfront and Marina. The City and Tucker Sadler have a formal 24-month period to collaboratively refine the vision. That clock started in late 2025, which puts us squarely in the middle of the study window this summer.
The scale of what is being studied is not modest. Mayor Zorn has said the project's total cost is close to $500 million, and there could still be some environmental challenges to overcome. The plan is to transform the waterfront with a proposed hotel, amphitheater, event center, restaurants and retail. The proposed project involves both landside development by Tucker Sadler Architects and waterside marina improvements by Safe Harbor Marinas.
The reason a $500 million reset is even on the table comes down to a number that most residents have never seen. If a future Development Agreement is approved, the project could eliminate the City's ongoing General Fund subsidy for Marina operations, a savings of about $650,000 per year, and shift responsibility for Marina reconstruction, including dredging and seawall/breakwater replacement, to the developer. Set that against the physical age of the place: the fishing pier dates back to the 1930s, and the marina was largely built in the 1960s.
The takeaway for a Martinez resident this August is not "the marina is closing." It is that the marina as you know it, quiet Saturday afternoons and all, is currently the baseline against which every design meeting is being measured. Enjoy it in that light.
What is actually on the calendar
A few dates worth putting on the fridge, all within a short walk or drive of the waterfront:
August 4, National Night Out at Waterfront Park. From 5:30 to 9 p.m., an evening to meet neighbors and local law enforcement and first responders at the Martinez Waterfront Park. This is the closest thing the summer offers to a "the whole town shows up" evening.
Through the summer, the vineyard and brewery circuit. Music at Viano Vineyards runs through the season, with KillBillies on August 1. Five Suns Brewing and Del Cielo Brewing rotate live acts most weekends, and Roxx on Main runs music Friday and Saturday nights.
October 3, Bike the Bridges: Bands & Brews. Kicks off from Martinez Waterfront Park at 3:00 p.m. If you want a single date that captures the current character of the waterfront, that is the one.
Look further out and the picture stays busy without ever getting frantic. The King of the County BBQ & Music Fest returned to Waterfront Park in June, and the Bay Area Craft Beer Festival has settled in as an April fixture. The rhythm is steady, small-town, and specific to this stretch of the Strait.
Where to eat before or after
The downtown side of the waterfront has quietly become one of the strongest small dining strips in the county, and it is worth knowing which door to open for which occasion.
For a proper dinner with reservations, Roxx on Main at 627 Main Street remains the anchor. Roxx has been named 2026 East Bay Times Readers' Choice Winner and inducted into the Readers' Choice Hall of Fame after winning four years in a row from 2023 through 2026. The menu leans on crafted cocktails, seasonal dishes, and live music.
For casual, Slow Hand BBQ, Brother Sister (the newer sister project from the Vic's Martinez team), and the Vietnamese, Thai, and ramen options along Main and Ferry all sit within a five-minute walk of each other. That density is unusual for a town this size, and it is one of the reasons the marina revitalization discussion keeps circling back to the idea that downtown is already there. The waterfront just has to catch up.
The music map, block by block
If you spent every weekend of the summer chasing live music inside the Martinez city limits, you would not run out. A rough map of who plays where:
- Roxx on Main for Friday and Saturday sets, with named acts like the Kurt Ribak Trio and Jinx Jones' Jazz-a-billy All-Stars on the June schedule.
- Viano Vineyards for afternoon shows on the hillside, family-friendly and easier to hear yourself think.
- Five Suns Brewing for the louder end of the spectrum, patio-forward.
- Del Cielo Brewing for the neighborhood-bar version of live music, including recent Mariachi San Carlos sets.
- William Welch Wines on Estudillo, quieter and wine-forward.
- The Blue Room at Harvest Moon Studios, 505 Estudillo Street, for the Thursday Night Concert Series.
There is no other Contra Costa town of Martinez's size with six distinct live-music rooms operating on the same weekend. That is worth pausing on. It is also part of why the case for a bigger, city-run outdoor amphitheater at the waterfront is being taken seriously in the revitalization plan.
What the mayor actually said
The Mayor's framing of the current waterfront is not diplomatic. It is worth reading in her own words.
"Everyone has said for years that the Martinez Marina and our waterfront is a jewel of the East Bay. But honestly, when you go down there, it is so underutilized," says Mayor Brianne Zorn.
For anyone who lives here and has watched a hundred Saturdays go by at the fishing pier with a dozen people on it, that reads as accurate rather than harsh. The interpretive point: the revitalization is not being sold as a fix for something broken. It is being sold as an unlock for something that has been present, and quiet, the entire time.
What could change, and on what timeline
Because the ENA period runs through 2027, most residents will not see a shovel this year or next. What they will see is a sequence of public meetings and design reviews. A few that have already happened worth knowing about:
The San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission Design Review Board received a preliminary, high-level overview of the Marina and Waterfront Vision on March 9th. That meeting allowed for initial comments and guidance from BCDC, whose early input is an important part of smooth progress through the later formal permitting process.
The proposal itself, if you have not been tracking it, is more granular than the "hotel and amphitheater" headline. On the landside, the project envisions new recreation amenities such as sport fields, a dog park, kite area, and public art installations, along with expanded open spaces featuring plazas, pedestrian pathways, marshland restoration, and stronger connections to downtown. Hospitality and community facilities, including hotels, restaurants, a community and event center, a new Martinez Yacht Club and Sea Scouts' facility, and an outdoor amphitheater, are also included. The plan also reserves an area for potential future ferry service.
The ferry piece is the one to watch. Martinez had a Benicia ferry until it ended in 1962. Bringing water transit back to the Strait would rewire the way people here think about a Saturday, and it is on the table for the first time in more than sixty years.
The Sunday version of the waterfront
Between now and whatever comes next, the current shoreline is still one of the best low-effort Sundays in the East Bay if you know the pieces. Park at the marina lot, walk east along the levee trail past the harbormaster's office, and you are on a chain of open spaces that most people outside Martinez never quite piece together.
The marina itself covers roughly 70 acres with 332 boat slips, a park, a fishing pier, and the yacht club, according to city planning documents. Immediately adjacent, the East Bay Regional Park District owns and maintains Radke Martinez Regional Shoreline Park, located adjacent to the project site, as well as the Carquinez Strait Regional Shoreline located farther to the east. Farther in on the trust lands, the bocce courts are usually in play, and Joe DiMaggio Field carries the semi-pro Martinez Sturgeon home schedule in the warmer months.
A short list for a Sunday, in order of energy:
- Coffee downtown, then the levee trail east from the harbormaster.
- Radke Martinez Regional Shoreline for the marsh views.
- Back to Main Street for a late lunch at Brother Sister or Slow Hand.
- If it is a Roxx night, book two weeks ahead, because it fills up.
That is the summer of 2026 in Martinez. Steady, specific, and paced at exactly the speed a lot of us moved here for. Next summer will not look the same, because a design review will have said something specific by then. This one still does.
Considering a move within Martinez, or out to Lamorinda?
If watching the waterfront plans unfold has you thinking about where you want to be for the next chapter of your Martinez story, or if you are weighing a move deeper into Lamorinda where trails, schools, and community routines take a different shape, Gillian Judge Hogan knows this stretch of the East Bay street by street. Reach out when you are ready to talk through your options.
