During the only sunny morning the city has seen all week, Mayor Ed Lee, Supervisor Scott Wiener, and various park officials unveiled the new south side of Dolores Park, which will open with a glow-in-the-dark party next week when the chain-link fences finally come down after six months of construction.
“It’s a great gift to the city,” said Lee at a press tour of the park on Thursday morning. Lee and Wiener walked with park officials through the new facilities ahead of the January 14 opening, praising the work involved in nearly six years of planning and the Love Dolores campaign, a partnership between park officials and local businesses.
“We’ve had wonderful community partners throughout the neighborhood,” said Weiner, as representatives from Bi-Rite Grocery and Cerveceria stood nearby.
Though the north side of the park suffered considerable setbacks during construction — including a $100,000 turf-destroying joyride and months of delay due to groundwater swells — the south side proceeded apace and was finished in just six months, compared to the nearly 14 months it took to renovate the north side. The whole process took much longer — some six years — but most of that was planning and incorporating various community inputs.
Those suggestions included more bathrooms, something the south side has in spades. A restroom built directly into the hill (to minimize the possibility of vandalism of its walls) will increase the park’s toilet count from four to 27. The refurbished south side also changes the slope of “gay beach” — creating a sharp downhill just before a flat landing of grass — and features a new paved overlook with views of the entire park, not to mention downtown San Francisco and the bay.
Whether all the new amenities will last is another question. Mayor Lee called the park a “great equalizer” because it is open and free, and both Weiner and Lee remembered the park as it was in the 1990s, with crime and drugs dominating a mostly brown, dry turf.
But trash is notoriously heavy at Dolores Park — a park official says the park gets 3 million gallons a year —and though much of it is now recycled due to the eco pop-ups surrounding the park, which will also be a feature of the south side, people continue to leave glass, bottle caps, and other trash that damage the park’s turf.
Park officials said education on trash would continue to be a focus, and Lee said “bad behavior” of litterers will be a significant challenge for the park. But most were excited that the six-year, $20.5 million Dolores Park ordeal was finally coming to a close — and were praying for good weather to hit the city next Thursday.
