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Developers have begun building a ferry terminal on the raw, palm-lined shore of Treasure Island, the site of a massive real estate project that could bring 8,000 homes and 24,000 new residents by 2035.

The ferry is a critical element of the transportation plan that city and county officials are continuously refining to get people to and from San Francisco without jamming the Bay Bridge. Construction of 266 homes began earlier this year on the adjacent Yerba Buena Island, and within two years people will start moving in.

In addition to the new housing, Treasure Island will have retail, restaurants, a hotel and extensive open space, so officials are also planning for tourists to visit the new development and parks.

Though the project at this point is little more than a barge and a jumble of cranes in front of the Treasure Island Administration Building, it’s “almost the creation of a place,” said Chris Meany, co-manager of Treasure Island Community Development, a joint venture of Lennar Corp., Stockbridge Capital Group and Wilson Meany. The group is investing tens of millions of dollars to fund the terminal, which developers hope to open in 2021.

Meany and others see ferries as a form of mass transit infrastructure that’s at once romantic and utilitarian. It strengthens San Franciscans’ connection to the water, while overcoming the psychological barrier of the bay and the bridge.

“Treasure Island is a funny thing,” Meany said. “It’s five to 10 minutes to get (from there) to the Financial District, or 20 minutes to get to the west side of town. It’s super close. Yet, because it’s an island, it seems so distant.”

It’s unclear whether a public agency or private contractor would operate the ferry service, or whether it could eventually expand to other parts of the East Bay — which would largely depend on demand and population density. San Francisco County Transportation Authority hopes to start by running vessels from the island’s western shore to the Embarcadero every 30 minutes during commute hours. By 2035, ferries would run every 15 minutes throughout the day.

Additionally, officials are planning to ramp up bus service and replace knotty, potholed roads with a grid of freshly paved pedestrian paths and bike lanes. They’re also contemplating tolls to enter and exit the island, a form of congestion pricing that’s captivated transportation experts and sparked debate in City Hall.

Ferries may ultimately be the most desirable form of transport, with San Francisco’s waterfront a quick jaunt across the choppy waters of the bay. The Bay Area is the country’s third-largest market for ferry service — behind Seattle and New York City — and many politicians are eyeing a future that includes the ambling boats of the past.

State Assemblyman David Chiu, D-San Francisco, is particularly smitten with ferries. He pressed for $300 million of the Regional Measure 3 toll hikes to be invested in new ferry infrastructure, along with $35 million annually to support operating costs. Among the recent developments is a temporary landing in Mission Bay to serve the Chase Center.

Also on the horizon: a new ferry terminal at a 68-acre waterfront development on Alameda Point, formerly home to a naval air station. Officials will celebrate the groundbreaking of the Seaplane Lagoon terminal — the city’s third such piece of ferry infrastructure — on Thursday.

Like their counterparts on Treasure Island, developers and politicians in Alameda see water transit as a means to ease congestion, lure people out of cars and mitigate climate change.

Rachel Swan is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: rswan@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @rachelswan

The newest museum in San Francisco will open in the city’s oldest mint this week.

The museum is in the new home of the San Francisco Historical Society at 608 Commercial St., a narrow thoroughfare that runs through the heart of the oldest part of the city.

The Commercial Street building is built on the site of the first U.S. mint in the West, which opened in 1854 during the California Gold Rush to turn nuggets and gold dust into coins and bullion. Later it was used as a subtreasury, where the government stored millions of dollars in gold and silver bars.

The original building came crashing down in the 1906 earthquake, but some of the original brick walls remain, and the subterranean vaults are still there.

Though the building is ancient by West Coast standards, it is topped by a Financial District high-rise.

And it comes with an only-in-San Francisco story involving a failed project, an impatient city government, a deal the planners made and even a Halloween horror show.

As trivia game experts know, San Francisco has had three U.S. mints. The first mint, on Commercial Street, was replaced in 1874 by a grand structure at Fifth and Mission streets. That building, now called the Old Mint, was itself replaced in 1937 by a new mint on Duboce Avenue, which is still coining money,

The Old Mint is a classic white elephant: too historic to demolish, too expensive to operate. The city acquired the building for $1 in 2003 and leased it to the San Francisco Historical Society, which had ambitious plans to convert the Old Mint into a museum of San Francisco history. But the society could not raise the $100 million or so the building needed to bring it up to modern seismic standards. When the fundraising stalled, the city ran out of patience and evicted the historical society. That was four years ago.

The society went on, offering programs, publications and city tours, but without a building to call home. Last last year, society First Vice President Tom Owens, who is active in real estate, stumbled on a deal he couldn’t pass up.

This was the building at 608 Commercial St. It was an old, small building, long on history and in a good location in the Financial District. It had been purchased in 1970 by the Bank of Canton. The bank wanted to build a high rise on the site — and after many delays, the city planners gave approval, on condition that the bank had to build around the historic existing building and maintain a museum there.

It was called the Pacific Heritage Museum and was a modest success. But the East West Bank, which took over the property, had no interest in operating a museum. So Owens cut a deal for the Historical Society to take over. The term is for five years, with an option to renew.

The first exhibit, a modest show called “Gold Fever! Untold Stories of the Gold Rush,” opens to the public at 10 a.m. Tuesday. Admission is free.

The show includes displays about the gold rush that transformed California, including some artifacts: gold nuggets, tools used to pan for gold and dig it out, and clothes worn by the miners, both European and Asian.

Visitors can peer into the underground vault where dusty crates used to hold a fortune in gold.

It’s the first of what the historical society hopes will be a long line of events and displays on Commercial Street.

“I have a passion for San Francisco history,” Owens said. “We want to show real stories out of old San Francisco. I think the stories are interesting and fun too, and if you can see it and feel it, that’s extremely important.”

Real estate is all about location and 608 Commercial St. lies at the epicenter of San Francisco history. Emperor Norton thought so; he lived for years in a rooming house just up the street. At one time, the shore of San Francisco Bay was just down the block at the corner of Commercial and Montgomery.

In the summer of 1846, a detachment of sailors and Marines rowed ashore there, marched up the sandy street to the plaza of the little town of Yerba Buena and raised the American flag for the first time.

Three years later, businessman and Mormon elder Samuel Brannan rode down Montgomery Street, a block away, shouting a message that changed California forever. “Gold!” he yelled, “Gold from the American River.” Not so long after that the town that grew up along Commercial Street turned into the city of San Francisco.

History is still being made. The Old Mint at Fifth and Mission is still mostly vacant, though it is being rented out for special occasions. One of them is opening his week.

On Thursday, a Halloween show called “Into the Dark” opens. “You are invited to take a tour of the historic San Francisco Old Mint where you come face to face with despicable horrors … scene after scene of horrific history,” the website says. Tickets are $62.

Carl Nolte’s column appears Sundays. Email: cnolte@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @carlnoltesf

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the social media company plans to expand offices more outside of the Bay Area than within it because of local infrastructure challenges like traffic and housing costs.

“At this point, we’re growing primarily outside of the Bay Area. Obviously, we’re still going to be growing a bit here, but the infrastructure here is really, really tapped. You guys all see this,” Zuckerberg said Thursday at an internal company question-and-answer session that was broadcast online. “The housing prices are way up. The traffic is bad.”

The Menlo Park tech giant has more than 60 offices around the world and nearly 40,000 global employees at the end of June. It has been one of the fastest-growing companies in the Bay Area, with locations in Burlingame, Fremont, Mountain View, Sausalito, Sunnyvale and two new towers in San Francisco.

Zuckerberg said the company would continue investing in the Bay Area to help to build more housing and alleviate transit, but much of the focus would be expanding outside the region.

Facebook, like Salesforce, Google and other large tech employers in the region, is grappling with limits to growth at home. At the same time, its revenues continue to rise, along with their ambitions. So they are growing around the country. A new study by real estate brokerage Cushman Wakefield found that 58 of the largest tech and biotech companies headquartered in the Bay Area have leased an additional 30.4 million square feet around the U.S., or room for over 150,000 employees. Austin, Texas; Seattle; New York and Southern California were the most popular regions to expand to.

Facebook is close to a massive lease in New York’s Hudson Yards, Crain’s reported. Manhattan’s real estate costs are comparable to San Francisco, but other cities are far more affordable. For instance, Austin’s office rents are around $40 a square foot annually. San Francisco rents are twice that, according to Cushman Wakefield.

Zuckerberg was responding to an employee who asked if Facebook had considered allowing more software engineers to work remotely as a growth strategy. Zuckerberg said yes, but said Facebook finds grouping people together in larger, physical offices has been more effective.

“We also don’t want to have a lot of small offices around the world,” Zuckerberg said. “Our engineering offices are really hubs.”

Many of Facebook’s projects in the Bay Area will take years to come to fruition, a testament to the complexity and slow processes around transit and housing. Facebook donated $1 million in 2016 to study rebuilding the Dumbarton rail bridge for an additional connection from Silicon Valley to the East Bay, and the project is still in the planning stages. Partnership for the Bay, a group that includes Facebook and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative — the philanthropic and investing entity founded by Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan — wants to raise $540 million for housing over five to 10 years.

Zuckerberg streamed the weekly event after the Verge published leaked audio recordings of a previous question-and-answer session, where he said he would fight government efforts to break up the company if Elizabeth Warren were elected president.

Zuckerberg said Thursday that he stands by his comments.

Roland Li is a Chronicle staff writer. Email: roland.li@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @rolandlisf