$11.7M Dolores Park Renovation Process to Kick-off This Spring, Park Closure For Up to 2 Years Possible

I was talking to some of the fine folks of Dolores Park Works this morning and they hipped me to this document outlining the city-approved $11.7 million Dolores Park Renovation project.  New bathrooms, better tennis courts, new playground, better grass for me to be cool on, and the clubhouse (that is currently full of asbestos) will be rebuilt and open for community events/soirees/romantic evenings gazing at the skyline/epic keggers.  This is about the best news to drop since the iPad.  But, of course, there is a catch: parts of the park (potentially the entire 14 acre eden) could be shut down for up to two years, starting as early as August 2011.  See you at Potrero del Sol.

From the January 11, 2010 Project Status Report:

The project scope will include the repair and/or renovation of the courts, field, and clubhouse; restoration of existing roads and pathways; upgrades to subsurface infrastructure, irrigation and lighting; modifications to the site to remove barriers and improve accessibility, and overall reconditioning of the park landscape. The renovation of the children's playground will be completed under a seperate project.

(At the time of publishing, no one from Supervisor Dufty's Office nor the Recreation and Parks Department was available for comment).

Comments (17)

WHAT THE WHAT

absolutely not worth it. i don’t care if the drinking fountains won’t taste like urine anymore. you can’t just close dolores down.

Starting in spring? That’s just cruel.

when I asked Dufty/Parks and Rec about this, they told me that “the entire park wouldn’t be closed” but they’d probably close half at a time….

….and I guess they lied to me……

..and so taking away yet another place where people can gather for FREE shuts down. This time under the disguise of ” community improvement”..??? Yet another manipulation of our tax dollars during this economic re/depression.

One thing is for sure: if trust-funded or nonworking non-taxpaying 20-somethings don’t want this park closed, then gosh darn it, we better not close this park.

After all, after construction it might get better for other people like children, and that would mess up weekend drinking. Bad trade.

this will never happen, that they will shut the whole park down for 2 years. impossible, as the community will not have it. closing sections is acceptable and necessary for the maintenance the park needs. but closing the whole thing, for years? it will never happen.

The thing is, this park in the past few years has become cafe area for the Bi-Rite/Tartine set, bringing way too much traffic to the park. And way too much disposable take-out packaging.

I am all for the park–love it, live near it, use it—but I am all for the park getting healthy. Bottle caps and cigarette butts embedded in the balding grass (and delfina pizzeria boxes clogging the trash cans). It was never meant to sustain the armies of from-outside-the-neighborhood-masses that it has had to take on in the past couple of years.

Dolores Park needs to get well.

As someone who lives only ½ block from the park, I hope it won’t have to be completely closed. However, I definitely agree with you “sea bea.” It “needs to get well.”

Hopefully people can go somewhere else to smash their bottles and scatter beer caps and cigarette butts. I walk my dog there a lot and it’s gross.

Dolores park needs work. The playground really need renovation. All is for the best and for us. Let’s stop the complain and be thankfull for what we are being given. There is no need to close the full park at once, I am sure we will have some grass left for us.

fuck that! were all gunna go have a beer there. no matter what. whos with me!

I think it’s great they are going to renovate delores park: it needs it badly. I don’t understand why so many people are complaining about this. It will be better for the community at large if these upgrades are made.

This is absaloutley rediculouse. while 900 teachers are being laid off and city college is cutting up to 300 classes because of the city’s finances the city finds money to rebuild a beautiful park. if it aint broke dont fix it. this in unessesary and the city is ruining a san francisco treasure. I’ve lived one block from the park my entire life and strongly protest the gross overspending on propaganda.

Are we at least going to get some underground parking with our $12M price tag?

I think the city just wants to waste money. Other than bad plumbing I see the need to fix, and waste 11million. Go build another park, garden elsewhere where there isn’t even one. Go to poor neighborhoods and build something.
Garfield park got “renovated” and it sucks. It’s inaccessible because it’s fenced off.
Valencia street is under cities “renovation” is it any better? Hell, no. bicycling sucks with narrowed roads at every intersection.
So much money is getting poured into useless stuff.

They should just give the money to me, and i’ll take care of the renovations…

We’ll have an epic party where three people walk away with a new Lamborghini. A Free big mac, a free pack of smokes, and a free 6er of bud light for everyone who comes. Non stop strippers, and fireworks the whole time. We’ll pay to dig up Michael Jackson’s coffin and have viewings. Lady Gaga will come and sing country music. We will spray one lucky person in gold leaf.

Then when we’ve used up 99.9% of the money we’ll use the last bit to spread some grass seeds. Renovation done.