Ranger Matt Connelly greets visitors arriving to tour Alcatraz Island on Monday, May 5, 2025, in San Francisco. President Donald Trump ordered that federal agencies work to reopen Alcatraz as a prison more than 60 years after its closure.
Lea Suzuki/S.F. Chronicle
On a one-day layover in San Francisco, London pilot Vojta Ocelak hadn’t planned on visiting Alcatraz on Monday, but after hearing that President Trump wants to turn the site into a prison again, he decided to visit the infamous “rock” with dozens of other tourists.
“I decided it’s a good time to visit while I still can,” said Ocelak, 30, with a laugh. “My first reaction (was) that it probably couldn’t happen. But that was my reaction to so many things that have happened here (in the U.S.) in the past few years.”
As Ocelak continued with his tour through the old cell blocks and exercise yard, local and national politicians, environmentalists, indigenous leaders, construction experts and even Trump supporters poked holes in the president’s post on social media. The plan would take many years to realize and a new federal prison there would likely be exorbitantly expensive to build and run.
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Visitors enter D Block as other visitors are silhouetted as they walk through the cell block on Alcatraz Island on Monday, May 5, 2025, in San Francisco. President Donald Trump ordered that federal agencies work to reopen Alcatraz as a prison more than 60 years after its closure.
Lea Suzuki/S.F. Chronicle
“Absurd on its face,” state Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, said of the idea in a statement Sunday after Trump uploaded his idea on Truth Social just before 4 p.m.
“Not serious,” Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi said in her own social media post.
Trump’s initial post promised action.
“REBUILD, AND OPEN ALCATRAZ!” he wrote. “…No longer will we tolerate these Serial Offenders who spread filth, bloodshed, and mayhem on our streets. That is why, today, I am directing the Bureau of Prisons, together with the Department of Justice, FBI, and Homeland Security, to reopen a substantially enlarged and rebuilt ALCATRAZ, to house America’s most ruthless and violent Offenders.”
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A seagull sits atop a sign reading Cellblock Audio Tour on Alcatraz Island on Monday, May 5, 2025, in San Francisco. President Donald Trump ordered that federal agencies work to reopen Alcatraz as a prison more than 60 years after its closure.
Lea Suzuki/S.F. Chronicle
Later Sunday, Trump told reporters it was “just an idea.”
On Monday, U.S. Bureau of Prisons Director William K. Marshall III said he would “pursue all avenues” to implement the plan.
“I have ordered an immediate assessment to determine our needs and the next steps,” Marshall said in a statement. “USP Alcatraz has a rich history. We look forward to restoring this powerful symbol of law, order, and justice.”
It’s unclear if Marshall or Trump have ever been to Alcatraz.
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It sits on a rocky island in the middle of the San Francisco Bay, surrounded by salty bay water. For nearly 60 years, it has operated as a national park, attracting about 1.2 million visitors per year, each dropped off and picked up at the dock by ferries.
Alcatraz Island seen behind a silhouette of visitors on the ferry to the island on Monday, May 5, in San Francisco.
Lea Suzuki/S.F. Chronicle
From 1933 to 1963, the site operated as a federal maximum security penitentiary, with an average population of about 275 prisoners, including notorious residents Al Capone and George “Machine-Gun” Kelly.
It was expensive to run back then — three times the cost of operating a mainland prison — with food, water and all supplies brought in by boat, according to the federal Bureau of Prisons.
So just what would it take to make Alcatraz a secure federal prison as Trump imagined in his post?
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While arguably possible, it would take more money, time and political will than any other prison in the history of the United States.
John Martini, an expert on Alcatraz history who served as a park ranger on the island in the 1970s, shortly after it opened to tourism, told the Chronicle Sunday that it would be impossible to reopen the cellblock now because the building is “totally inoperable,” with no water or sewage, and electricity only in certain parts.
“It was falling apart and needed huge amounts of reconstruction, and that would have only brought it up to 1963 code,” Martini said.
A broken toilet is seen in the cellblock during a tour of Alcatraz Island on Monday, May 5, 2025, in San Francisco. President Donald Trump ordered that federal agencies work to reopen Alcatraz as a prison more than 60 years after its closure.
Lea Suzuki/S.F. Chronicle
Tearing it down and rebuilding it in an earthquake zone would require bringing in all materials on barges and then figuring out how to get plumbing to the island or alternatively boating in water and barging out all human waste.
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While it’s unclear exactly how much it would cost to rebuild a prison on Alcatraz, it wouldn’t be cheap. The most expensive prison construction projects planned currently in the country top $1 billion, although they would house more than 1,000 inmates. Those sites, however, are not on islands in earthquake-prone regions.
Alcatraz is not only on an island, it is a National Historic Landmark, which means it officially has “exceptional value to the nation” and that changing it in any way would require extra environmental hurdles to minimize harm to the landmark, per federal law.
For comparison, the estimated cost to seismically upgrade and renovate a historic former high school site near City Hall to one day house the city’s public school of the arts was about $400 million in 2021.
Officials at the Department of the Interior and National Park Service, which oversee Alcatraz, said they had “nothing to add at this time” and “the President’s statement speaks for itself.”
A visitor takes a photo in the recreation yard during a tour of Alcatraz Island on Monday, May 5, 2025, in San Francisco. President Donald Trump ordered that federal agencies work to reopen Alcatraz as a prison more than 60 years after its closure.
Lea Suzuki/S.F. Chronicle
Back on the mainland at City Hall, Mayor Daniel Lurie echoed other politicians’ doubt about the president’s idea.
“This is not a serious proposal,” he said.
Supervisor Danny Sauter, whose district includes the tourist ferry dock to Alcatraz, also scoffed at the president’s plans.
“I’s from an administration that claims to be focused on cutting costs when there’s nothing more expensive than an idea like this,” he said.
Sauter said costs to revamp the island would be “through the roof” and not feasible.
In addition, Alcatraz is a beloved and unique part of San Francisco, a “huge part of our global reputation and tourism,” Sauter said. “We’re not going to let something like that get turned over to a prison.”
Supervisor Matt Dorsey, whose district includes Alcatraz, said his knee-jerk reaction to Trump comments is to “resist having a knee-jerk reaction.”
“I assume that reopening Alcatraz will take its place on a to-do list that currently includes annexing Canada, seizing Greenland, and turning the Gaza Strip an American beach resort,” he said, but then added he’s open to a multi-billion dollar investment. “Show us the plan, and maybe we’ll start taking these ideas seriously.”
Visitors touring Alcatraz Island walk past the remains of the Officer’s Club on Monday, May 5, 2025, in San Francisco. President Donald Trump ordered that federal agencies work to reopen Alcatraz as a prison more than 60 years after its closure.
Lea Suzuki/S.F. Chronicle
Back on Alcatraz, boatloads of tourists filed on and off the island, standing in cells, taking pictures behind the bars and admiring the cell where Capone once slept.
Mike Neville, 61, of Colorado, said that “Trump says a lot of things.”
“The reality of trying to turn this place back into a prison is an idea that I can’t even imagine would be possible,” he said, adding he preferred Trump over Vice President Kamala Harris but that he didn’t agree with all his policies.
If it were financially possible to reopen Alcatraz as a prison, however, he said he would support it.
Angus Mackay, of Scotland, was among the morning tourists on “the rock” Monday, in town for one day while on a cruise from Los Angeles to Oregon.
“You always see it in the movies,” he said, referring to the more than 20 films set on or about Alcatraz. “It’s quite iconic.”
Mackay said the idea of turning it back into a prison made no sense.
“It’s a waste of federal money,” he added. .
Tara Duggan, Aldo Toledo and Julie Johnson contributed to this story.
