If you take the last exit off westbound Interstate 580 before you hit the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge, you’ll find yourself on a narrow, potholed road heading north along the shoreline. About a mile down, as you round a corner, an unusual little town will come into view.

A massive red brick building capped with castlelike turrets sits on your left and a village of small, tidy homes, complete with a playground, hugs the hill to the right. All abandoned. High fences topped with barbed wire circle the property and signs saying "Keep Out."

This is Point Molate, once known as Winehaven. A federally recognized historic district, the red brick buildings here once housed the largest wine distribution center in the United States, and some say the world.

“In California, when the San Francisco earthquake came in 1906, the California wine industry was much different than it is today,” Richmond Mayor Tom Butt said. “There were still wineries scattered all over the state, but about 80 percent of them were owned and controlled by an organization called the California Wine Growers Association. And this was not just a friendly bunch of people promoting wine -- this was basically a monopoly.”

After the earthquake destroyed storage and distribution centers in San Francisco, the growers built Winehaven in Richmond. But then came Prohibition, and ultimately the wine growers went out of business.

The Navy used the site as a fueling depot from 1942 until the base closed 20 years ago. In 2003, the Navy handed the land over to the city of Richmond.

Now, this prime real estate, right on the bay with views of Mount Tamalpais, has cleared a major hurdle to new development. Last week marked the completion of a massive remediation job -- cleaning up toxic fuel waste left by the Navy.

“Basically, the majority of the site was underground ponds,” said Craig Murray, development project manager for the city of Richmond, gesturing toward what’s now an open green field. “So you’d look out and see these facilities that the Navy would dispose of not only waste-related products into the soil, and some were later lined, but also the materials coming from the homes were put there. So it was just this one large catchall.”

Cleaning up the 11.2-acre site cost the Navy about $11 million.

“A total of 207,000 tons of hazardous and regulated waste were excavated and removed,” City Manager Bill Lindsay said. “That is a lot of dirt.”

While the site is now clean enough for residential use, just how to develop it remains up for debate.

“The concept for the development hasn’t really been worked out yet -- it’s still being discussed,” Lindsay said. “I think there’s some great ideas out in terms of what it can become.”

Both Richmond voters and the City Council rejected a plan to turn Winehaven and much of Point Molate into a casino development.

Don Gosney, former community co-chair of the Point Molate Restoration Advisory Board, said the property needs to bring in revenue for the city.

“It costs well over a million dollars a year just for bare-bones maintenance, fire control and security,” he said. “The city cannot afford to keep paying for that. So, if you go along with what so many in this community want, which is just parkland and open space, these are cost items -- they bring in no revenue.”

Although it looks like a builder's dream, the site also has issues that make it less attractive for development than high-profile former military sites elsewhere, according to Charlie Duncan, chairman of the Point Molate Community Advisory Committee.

“The problem with Point Molate, and what makes it different from the Presidio and Fort Baker, is that there’s no water here -- there’s very little electricity,” he said. “There’s not enough incoming utilities to serve the kind of uses that we’d hope to see.”

Bringing in these utilities will take a lot of money. According to one report last year, it would cost about $15 million to bring in sewer service and another $15 million for gas and electric utilities. Potable water and telecommunications will cost even more.

The site also has a minor image problem. It's easy to forget, but Chevron's massive Richmond refinery is just over the hill from Point Molate. The facility's impact on local communities is an ongoing concern, as illustrated by a 2012 fire and smoke plume that sent 15,000 people to seek medical attention. Safety concerns may still trouble potential residents or investors.

Finally, the site's historic designation also limits what type of development is possible.

For now, Lindsay says the top priority is getting people back in.

“I think what we really want to do, figuratively anyway, is swing open the gates and have people take advantage of the beauty here along San Francisco Bay," said the city manager.

Murray, the city development project manager, said a design firm is already working with the East Bay Regional Park District to extend the Bay Trail into Point Molate. He said that building the trail could begin within the next year.