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"It's about as risky a project as there is," said Jack Sylvan, San Francisco's director of the Treasure Island redevelopment project. "It's massively front-loaded."

The tab will run about $1.5 billion to pay for the land, shore up a weak sea wall, pound stability into the soil and add several feet of fill in many areas to brace for rising Bay levels, build a ferry terminal, roads and utilities. A team of developers must shell out as much as $300 million before cement pours on the first of what could be as many as 8,000 homes, sometime in 2014. The city plans to borrow against future Treasure Island tax revenues for its larger share of the infrastructure bill.